The Timeless Beauty of Natural Stone: Travertine and Porcelain

There is nothing that speaks, timeless elegance, quite like natural stone. Each slab of stone has its own unique fingerprint, each piece is different, in pattern and colour. For this reason, a person who wishes to make a statement in stone, would personally select the slabs from which the tiles would be cut to size.

With slabs cut from the same block of rock, you can keep the pattern consistent, throughout your home. This is an impressive achievement, usually found in the home of someone, with a passion for art.

Travertine Tiles

Travertine Tiles one of the most popular stones used for building materials, it will look fantastic wherever you install it. Travertine creates a classic, fresh and functional atmosphere while still feeling warm and welcoming, it is known for its marble-like texture and attractive earthy tones.

Our trusted supplier ensures that we can select the very best affordable quality travertine products, purchased from a Travertine Quarry in Turkey.  

Travertine Tiles come in two forms:

Unfilled Travertine Tiles: Travertine in its porous state with naturally occurring holes, popular for outdoor use. Filled Travertine Tiles: Most commonly, the porous holes in travertine are filled with a mixture of hardener and dust by-products, from the cutting and honing process, for a perfect colour match.

Travertine Finishes

Honed Travertine Tiles: Honed is a flat, satin smooth, low shine, matte finish. Over the years, Honed travertine has proven to be the finish of choice, for the majority homeowners. Polished Travertine Tiles: The travertine is smoothened and polished to a shiny, reflective surface like marble. This finish is most preferred in commercial applications.

Brushed Travertine Tiles: Brushed is a rough surface texture with a matte finish. It has an antique feel and is less slippery compared to a honed or polished finish, while being gentle on the feet.

Tumbled Travertine Tiles: Tumbled is the most natural finish, highly textured finish, with no shine and edges, rounded with a worn appearance that resembles ancient stone. 

You will most often find Tumbled travertine in outdoor applications. Travertine colours range from soft ivory and pale creamy-white to rich golden shell shades of walnut and honey, silvery greens, rustic reds, deep mocha, and coffee shades. Travertine products available include tiles, cladding, and mosaics. (Basins and Slabs available on request).

Porcelain Tiles

Porcelain tiles are a manufactured product, created to mimic the look and feel of natural stone. To the untrained eye, some high-quality porcelain tiles, can look like natural stone, but an expert would immediately be able to detect the difference.

Porcelain tiles are not individually unique, as marble and granite are, in variation. These tiles come highly recommended for interior floors and walls that endure heavy traffic, known for being strong, resistant to chipping this includes hallways, kitchen floors, and commercial applications.

Porcelain paving slabs are always a safe option for outdoor tiling, of the non-synthetic floor tiles available, porcelain pavers are the most slip resistant. The manufacturing process utilizes a very dense clay and granite which is non-porous, as a result, water does not soak into the concrete bed easily and evaporates from its surface. 

This isn’t the case with most other stone tiles. Please feel free to ask any of our experienced salespeople for assistance or advise when purchasing a product, we are here to make your shopping experience as memorable as possible.

Build it Gansbaai offers local delivery, supplying the greater Overberg area with building materials, do-it-yourself home improvement tools, and expert advice.

Build it Gansbaai offers added value services in respect of hardware retailing; embracing all activity within the building materials industry, focusing specifically on the building of; urban, township, rural housing as well as all home improvements and do it yourself.

Build it is a division of the SPAR Group Limited South Africa. A voluntary trading group of individually owned retail stores with more than 10 000 employees across the group, we currently have stores in South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique with plans to expand into Botswana and Zambia in the near future. We view ourselves not only as a supplier of materials, but as a partner to our valued customers in accomplishing their building or renovating projects.