We are always looking to feature top-notch designers on our blog who have demonstrated quality craftsmanship in their work.  ArtWalk Tile would like to introduce you to Bryce & Doyle located in Rochester, NY.

Bryce & Doyle is a design and remodeling firm who’s mission is to help you rediscover the passion in your home by providing you with exceptional levels of quality craftsmanship and customer service.

Their specialties are bathroom design and kitchen design, however, they can design any room in your house and create the perfect living experience.

Bryce & Doyle - Bathroom Design

They offer the end-to-end home interior design and remodeling services from the design of your room to providing the materials, managing the project, providing the general contracting, supplying your product and ensuring your happiness on every project.

Bryce & Doyle - Kitchen Design

Head over to their website and view more of their incredible gallery, or check them out on Facebook where they are adding photos of their recent work. You can also visit their showroom in the High Falls District of Rochester, NY – or tour it online.

At ArtWalk Tile, we are always looking for more ways to provide service to our customers.  We’ve decided to build a network of interior designers, tile designers and similar services across the United States.  Choosing a reputable designer can be a challenge, unless you know someone personally, or have someone recommended to you.  We hope our growing designer network will help you choose the right partner for your tile or design project.

If you’ve been following our blog, and have connected with us on Facebook, you may have had the opportunity to guess what was in the box we shared a picture of.  We’ve had some great guesses, all in the name of fun (and a Starbucks Gift Card).  Here were some of the guesses people submitted:

• A kitchen trash compactor
• A bird bath
• Some big honking’ tiles (we like this one)
• Packing peanuts
• Guitars (hmm mosaic tile guitars could be cool)
• A Refrigerator

Mosaic Tiled Mannequins with Attitude

Each mannequin was assembled with love, right here in the ArtWalk Tile showroom, and depending on the day, you may have stopped in and seen us in action.

Hand crafted tile mosaic mannequins by ArtWalk Tile

We’ve got a few still in the works, and 1 or 2 yet to design.  Each a masterpiece of it’s own, and each a unique personality with attitude and flair.  These mosaic tile mannequin beauties will be the talk of the town for a long time to come!

We’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks about where these mannequins will be installed, when you can see them, and the whole process beginning to end.  It’s been fun for us, and we know Rochester will enjoy it as well!

Michelle from Mount Kisco, NY entered the “My Tile Style Contest” late last year, with her renovated bathroom. This project included a full replacement of shower, sink, toilet, with the addition of a recessed medicine cabinet and wainscoting on the walls for great contrast.

And of course, the floor was retiled with product from ArtWalk Tile.  Michelle used the Efesus Tumbled Stone Tile and alternated 8″ x 8 ” and 8″ x 16″ tile in varying shades including ivory cream and warm walnut.

MiEfesus Stone Tumbled Tiled

Thank you Michelle for your submission. We love the contrast of the dark walls, with the wainscoting and all tied together with the earth tone floor tiles.  Nice job!

We’ve been running a Facebook promo over the last month or so… what’s in the box?  The big reveal will be on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012.  There’s still a few days left to make a guess. (Sadly, you do need a Facebook account to participate, but no worries, we will run other Non-Facebook promotions throughout the year.)

And here’s a hint…  Whatever is in the box (actually, there were several, all the same size…) is being designed and turned into tile art by our creative and talented team here at ArtWalk Tile.  This hint may give it away, but that’s okay because the gift card is not being given for a right answer, it’s a drawing…

We are so excited about this project!  The big reveal is next week and we can’t wait! Make sure you like us on Facebook, and take your guess.  We think you’ll be impressed!

We came across these cool stairs on Pinterest – we’ve become addicted to this site, and are really enjoying browsing all the unique and fun architecture photos.  We walk away with creative design ideas and just some all around really cool stuff.  If you are in the process of building or designing, you should definitely check Pinterest out.  We will keep sharing fun stuff as we find it, but here are some really cool ideas for stairs.

Pretty keen idea – create a greenhouse with your steps.  Maybe your outdoor steps leading to your deck area or back yard.  These are just simply green, but maybe you could plant floras in different colors that grow to different heights with each step – get creative.  The folks who came up with this are on to something!

Here’s another one we found pretty inventive… creating more storage space for a typically useless area?  Some homes have a crawl space underneath the stairs, but this set of stairs takes that to a whole new level – create drawers.  I love it!  What would you store in your stairs?

Check out some other cool stair cases we’ve come across.  We found one painted to look like a bookshelf, and one that looks like a set of piano keys.  We will keep searching these out!

If you have not yet discovered the site Pinterest, it’s new, it’s visual, and we love it!  It is an image bookmarking site where you can share images of just about anything.  We’ve found some really cool design ideas and tile projects of all kinds.  You can create boards by category and share images with your followers, and search the entire Pinterest universe to see what others are sharing and “repine” their images, saving them to one of your boards.

We found this really cool image, a mosaic rainbow… or is it?

Look closely!  It is actually hundreds and hundreds of matchbox cars arranged by color to create this beautiful image.  That might make for a really cool wall decoration eh?  Take all these tiny pieces, mount them on a board and hang it up on the wall!  It’s not tile, but it’s pretty darn cool!

As we continue to feature the entries from the My Tile Style contest, here was another submission from Rod.  Rod is an architect and a builder who has designed and built many homes for clients.  His submission for the tile contest was much more personal, however.

He and his wife were finally able to put an addition on their home and in the process added a master bathroom for themselves.  His wife always wanted a master bath; a place where she could relax and pamper herself.  When we set out to design the bathroom, the idea was to create a spa for her.  A place warm and inviting, but fun and playful at the same time as well.

We did a lot of searching both locally and on the internet, and finally found the tile we were looking for through ArtWalk.  I utilized the Emser Tile – Strands Tile for the basic field tile and set it with an alternating direction for the pattern.

I then added some artistic detail, utilizing the ArtWalk Tile brand Natural Polished Pebbles in Black for an accent detail that flows from the steam shower out into the bathroom.  These pebbles terminate into two wider pools that line up with the sink locations at the double vanity.

Our course, the whole project would not have been possible with a great tile guy.  He thought I was a bit crazy at first.   explained my idea and we laid out the pattern on the floor for the pebbles.  I think he had a great time on this project and was quite proud of the final results.  (He even brought his family by occasionally to check on the progress as we worked on it.)

The entire floor is radiant heated (an extra perk), and walking on the pebbles is like a warm massage for your feet.

Rod, we congratulate you and your wife on your new master bath.  It is inspired, and yes playful.  We love to see folks who can take tile and use it in a creative way that gives a room a whole new look and feel that goes beyond just plan old tile wall and tile floors.

A job well done!

Diana just won $1,000 from ArtWalk Tile.  Her bathroom remodel project received the most Facebook votes!

Here’s what Diana had to say about her project:

My husband and I completely gutted the old master/1st floor guest bathroom. After closing the guest entry, it is now a dedicated master bath. Woo Hoo! My husband removed a wall to make the bathroom larger so that we could put in a separate whirpool tub and shower. The extra space also allowed us to put in a double sink vanity. (Unfortunately I was unable to include a picture of the complete vanity in my photo since I couldn’t get everything in my viewfinder.) Because none of the fixtures are in their original locations, my hubby also had to put in all new wiring and plumbing.

After drywalling and getting my brother-in-law to plaster, I painted the walls then installed the new tile. It took about 3 full days to complete the tile work as this was only my second time tiling. I used the 13″x 13″ tile on the floor at a diagonal. The tub base is covered in the 2″ x 4″ mosaic. The 6″ x 6″ tile were used on the walls around the tub and for the shower. I especially love the cubby holes in the shower for shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc. I absolutely love the tile not only because of the color, but the non-slip matte finish is perfect for a bathroom.

I would highly recommend this tile and ArtWalk because they were so great to work with, especially Joe Ventura, whom I emailed before ordering with numerous questions, and always got a prompt and informative response. Also Brian D. made sure the tile that were broken in transit were promptly replaced. The tile were shipped exactly as ordered and at a great savings compared to all the other websites I checked. In fact, I saved over $600 compared to some other retailers!! I also loved the fact that ArtWalk Tile had a rating system on their tile so that I could be assured they were exactly the type of tile I wanted for this project.

Diana’s project features Marazzi Tile – Walnut Canyon in Cream in 3 sizes.

Congratulations to Diana on your beautiful new master bath, and on winning $1,000!

If you missed out on this contest, make sure you stay connected with ArtWalk Tile!  We’ll be running more great contests in 2012!

Yes… we love unique use of mosaic art, and designer Rebecca Newnham of the UK has it down.  Her preference is to create art on a grander scale, and many of her miniatures like the mosaic orchid shown below are often times models for larger pieces to be created in the future.

Tile Mosaic Orchid by Rebecca Newnham

In 2011, Rebecca completed pieces in a project to reside in a peace garden.  These mosaic pieces were dedicated to a victim of a violent crime, and the students from the victims school worked with the artist on this project.

Rebecca Newnham Art

As an artist, Newnham is interested in the chemical makeup of living organisms and that shows in her art.  Many of her pieces appear as molecules or chains of molecules as if being examined under a microscope.  Her work is both beautiful and almost scientific.

Rebecca Newnham Large Mosaic Art

She has been commissioned to build sculptures for everything from cruise ships and hospice facilities to palaces and private gardens.  Her glass skin mosaic sculptures are an absolutely magnificent example of mosaic art.

We love mosaics of all kinds – typically we deal in tile mosaics, but we came across these works of art and thought we’d share them.  On display at the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida are these shell mosaics, known as Sailors’ Valentines.

This type of mosaic shell art came about in the 19th century.  Women in the Caribbean started developing these mosaics for sailors to take home to their beloved families.

This type of art is set in these octagonal boxes to create symmetrical compositions using small shells of different shapes, colors and sizes to create visual imagery.

It was believed that these “valentines” were made by sailors themselves to pass the time at sea and show their love for those back home, but that was just a myth.  They were assembled by women who resided in ports of call in areas like Barbados and other Caribbean islands where the whalers would purchase gifts for those back home.

This art form form of shell mosaics in Sailors’ Valentines has recently been revived among shell crafters. The photos here do not do these shell mosaics justice – to see them in person is to tell you they are simply magnificent.   This exhibit at the Shell Museum also included a display with one built in phases as a sort-of “how-to” guide to making your own.

B-E-A-Utiful!