Lyndhurst Garden House

Lyndhurst Garden House
Lyndhurst Garden House

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Colors that match Kohler Almond

Kohler Almond is too yellow for all the Crema Marfil's that I've looked at, even the one from Rex that I thought would work.  I am putting the colors side by side on my monitor now, color accuracy is far better on my Sony 34XBR960, which I can switch to.  But the effect of Almond being too yellow for Crema Marfil is so strong I can't believe it would be ok with a better rendition.

It seems like Crema Marfil is a perfect match for Kohler Bisque, which may be why Kohler Bisque is like that.  It is basically, as my friend says, dirty white, with basically no yellow to rub against the Crema.  Crema and Bisque go together, makes sense, right?

What does go with Kohler Almond, however, may include many charmers.  One it does include, apparently, Calacatta.*  The white in Rex Calacatta (I Bianchi di Rex collection)  matches Kohler Almond perfectly on my Samsung monitor.  The gold in the Calacatta resonates well with the Almond also.  It looks like I Bianchi di Rex has 4 different Calacatta's (!) and two of them work especially well, and two others just so so.  But no Calacatta clashes like Almond with Crema Marfil.

(*Calacatta is the marble of kings, rarer and more expensive than the well known Caracarra.)

Calacatta is very cool.  Could I imagine a solid bathroom in Rex Calacatta.  Dreaming.  Dreaming.  It might be too much anyway.  But forget the two tones and whatever, to dip down to wainscoting have a diagonal piece that connects full shower level to wainscoting level.  Ta Da!

Looking some more online, some porcelain calacatta are too white, with the lines too gray.  I need the one where the white is very off white (just like almond) and the lines are gold (which matches my wall coloring, and I just like it).

So far, as I might expect, I like the Rex Calacatta the best.  It seems to have exactly the right colors, and interesting veining.  But not surprisingly it's very expensive.  List price is $25 per square foot but I've seen it on sale for as low as $9 per square foot--which is still 2-3 times more expensive than porcelain calacatta tiles by US manufacturers I've seen so far.

Piastrella has pretty good colors in their $3 per square foot (discount price) White Calacatta.  It's not as good as Rex, but it's the best alternative I've seen so far (I wrote, before seeing the Marazzi, which may be a tad better).  Except that it's made in China, which I'd rather avoid, but probably OK in a porcelain tile.

Marazzi also makes pretty good calacatta in their Timeless series.  Frankly I like the Rex a lot better, but what brought me to Marazzi was also the fact that they make small calacatta porcelain in small hex tiles, and they are the first company I've seen with that offering.  Small hex tiles are the only kind of tile suitable for bathroom floor next to tub.  Curiously, I can get genuine Calacatta hex tiles for less than Calacatta Porcelain next tiles.  I still want the porcelain for less maintenance and zero staining.  I actually like the huesin Marazzi's fake calacatta better than the real thing from Builder Depot.

But if I thought BD's porcelain calacatta in hex mosaic was expensive, Marvel Calacatta in square mosaic tiles costs twice as much!  And I don't even like it very much.  The white is more gray than almond, the veining is more like gray and black blotching, no gold colors and no particular depth.  The quire pattern is boring.  To be fair, I'm only judging from a Mac monitor.

Now I was just thinking, I don't actually need the floor to match perfectly.  I'm already mismatching by using small tiles on floor, and large on the wall.  I'm thinking I could use a darker color than calacatta white on the floor.  And I like the Marvel Bronze Luxury Mosaic, or at least I like it better than the Marvel Calacatta.  But it's also very high priced,  I don't like it that much.

Looking at all the Carrara Marbles at BuildDirect, I like the Calacatta Statuario the best--it has the most almond toned white, and interesting veining.  But I still like the look of the Rex better.  The Rex has similar tone to the Statuario but it has maven more interesting veining, with gold instead of black.  Most of the other Carraras and Calacattas look almost blueish by comparison, with exception of the Statuarietto Venato, which has a nice tone, but much less interesting veining than the Statuario.

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