interior finish Archives

Called back to a pool he'd bid on unsuccessfully ten years earlier, William Drakeley found that the winning contractor had fallen short in several ways. It was now up to him to persuade an extremely reluctant client to start all over again, this time with a more suitable approach.

Hard-Won Beauty

As we were wrapping up a WaterShapes article called "Working at Water's Edge" back in the fall of 2018, it occurred to me that there was another story to be told about one of the projects highlighted in the text. In that article (click here), a pool I wrote about was set up on the edge of a large, manmade lake. I briefly noted that I'd been called to the site as a consultant after having seen the place several years earlier as a designer/builder who hadn't won the contract. In this article, I'll go back to my initial contacts with the client and tell a fuller story of a trying relationship that, slowly and with great difficulty,

As glass-tile specialist Jimmy Reed sees it, the earlier he gets involved in a project, the better. In this case, however, he joined the project team a bit late -- which led to some unusual and expensive consequences as well as tough decisions having to do with layout and visual flow.

An All-Tile Adventure

This was one of those cases where a project that offers all the indications of a direct path to success took a couple of weird turns that complicated things in unusual ways. The pool and spa are located high up in Trousdale Estates, a canyon-hugging neighborhood above Beverly Hills, Calif. The views are magnificent all the way to downtown Los Angeles in one direction and to the Pacific Ocean in another - and the spaces in which the pool and separate spa had been placed took the fullest possible advantage of those prospects. Our client was a multifaceted home-design/build company that had a distinguished track record with this sort of all-concrete

The Muse Collection from Oceanside Glasstile

Oceanside Glasstile (Carlsbad, CA) has introduced the Muse line of mosaic glass tile. Available in…

Oceanside Glasstile Publishes Catalog

Oceanside Glasstile (Carlsbad, CA) has released its Tile Specification Guide and Design Book – a…

When Jimmy Reed approaches intersections of planes in tile surfaces, he sizes up the situation and figures out ways to complete the transitions with polished visual dexterity. It's not easy work, but he knows that these deft touches turn the common into the awesome.

Defined by Details

Even after years of operation in the tile-application business, we still find fresh challenges and new sources of pride in what we do. I think it's primarily because we spend so much of our time focusing on fine details - the little touches that turn routine work into creative exercises and repetitive tasks into ongoing sparks of inspiration. A case in point is the huge job on display in this article: The three watershapes encompass vast square footage that includes fields of

Jewels for Pools from Universal White Cement

Universal White Cement (Glendale, AZ) offers Jewels for Pools with Pebble Radiance. This blend of…

Surface Value

Value is measured and determined in a variety of ways. When it comes to pools and spas, for example, I'd say that the straight-dollar value is only one of several yardsticks and that, for many clients, it's no longer the one that tops their lists. Instead, beauty, health benefits, artistic merit, pride of ownership and emotional appeal are more important than price tag for many of them - a wonderful trend, to my way of thinking. These measures of value, of course, are highly subjective. Every client is a little bit different, and the relative value of non-monetary factors can be

Smoothing the Way

In renovation projects, preparation of the pool's interior surface for a new finish is truly where the rubber meets the road - a key step in which what you've planned and what you actually do must come together. With this installment of "Details," we're doubling back to the Los Angeles project we left behind in October as we waited for tile to arrive from Italy. If you'll recall, the pool had been built in the 1920s and graces a property with a magnificent Gatsby-era home. As I mentioned at the outset of this interrupted sequence of columns, the homeowners have been extremely involved, always wanting to know as much as they possibly can about what's going on in their backyard. As I mentioned as well, the challenge

Most watershapers lavish nearly all of their design attention on features and details above the waterline, but designer/builder Glenn Harris would rather focus his efforts on the broad canvas that spreads below the water’s surface. Here, he’ll explore the creative possibilities of tile, plaster and other finish materials, defining in this case what can happen when you turn your thoughts to tile and a set of new decorative frontiers.

Inside Moves

We live in a wonderful era of creative development in a variety of watershaping trades and are truly blessed, it seems, with an ever-expanding generation of talented artists and a sense that our most dynamic creations are yet to be built. For all of this forward momentum, however, I find myself surprised and dismayed all too often by the lack of creativity that goes into our work below the water's surface. To my eyes, pool and spa interiors in particular are simply bland and boring. I'm oppressed by six-inch waterline tile surmounting a field of

Chromatic Virtues

Color is amazing. It provides us with some of greatest opportunities we ever have to create spaces that are emotionally evocative and visually compelling - yet it is also one of the most difficult design details to understand and put to good and effective use. Trouble is, there's no easy way to simplify the challenge: Color is indeed a tough nut to crack, and that's as true for architects, artists, fashion designers and the people who choose colors for new