Posts filed under ‘Mid Century Modern’
Rex Ray Rox! Doesn’t he?
We’re very proud of our collaboration with acclaimed fine artist Rex Ray.
Since 2011 we’ve been developing tile products using his uniquely retro and modern designs. His iconic work is easily recognizable. Let’s just say it’s cool.
We first introduced 4×12 glass subway tiles in a black and white newsprint collage design we call Type Tiles. They are popular across the country with retail, hospitality and residential clients alike. They’ve even been featured on HGTV in a Kitchen Cousins episode in NYC.
The lastest release of our Rex Ray Studio for modwalls collection is a line of handmade matte ceramic tile in 2 designs and seven modern colors. The MMM’s and Rox are getting lots of attention. A bit edgy, a bit bold and so very Rex Ray.
All of our Rex Ray Studio for modwalls tile designs are handmade in the USA. See the entire collection along with all of our other American made tile designs here on our website:
Modwalls American Made Tile Collections.
At modwalls we’re “Making Tile Modern” with unique and colorful collections inspired by mid-century design. We offer delightful customer service and a hassle free online buying experience for retail and trade customers. www.modwalls.com We’re available by phone Monday-Friday from 9-5 Pacific time: 1-877-439-9734.
Find out more about Fine Artist Rex Ray on his website.
Need Some Eichler Inspiration?
Eichler Homes are distinctively known for their amazing Mid-Century modern style (which is probably why we and so many others still love them so much)!!!
Little Eichler history (per Wikipedia): Between 1950 and 1974, Joseph Eichler’s company, Eichler Homes, built over 11,000 homes in nine communities in Northern and Southern California. They all came to be known as Eichlers or an Eichler. During this period, Eichler became one of the nation’s most influential builders of modern homes. The largest contiguous Eichler Homes development is ‘The Highlands’ in San Mateo, built between 1956 and 1964. Basically, Eichler defined what “California Modern” really is or what it’s perceived to be. Read more Eichler history here.
On a recent browsing sesh on Pinterest, we found a link to a great site featuring our Brio tile in one of our customers’ gorgeous Eichler residence. All photos are courtesy of Hunter Lewis Wimmer of redneckmodern.com. We hope you are inspired as much as we are by this stunning post-mod home!
This is what the homeowner Mary-Peyton said:
“We spent HOURS on the custom mix configurator (Modwalls Tile Blender). The floors in the kitchen are black and in the dining area they are grey. There is a ton of wood in the house so we wanted to include all those colors to tie it together. Throw in some mid-century orange, turquoise and apple green and we were good to go. I wish we had more wall space to show off the tile!”
Because we love this Brio blend so much, we wanted to share Mary’s perfect custom blend recipe:
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25% Bright White
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20% Dry Ice
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9% Sleet
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9% Marigold
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9% Tarragon
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8% Teak
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7% Marina
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6% Black
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4% Cool Breeze
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3% Orange
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Modwalls is making tile modern with colorful and unique designs that are in stock and available for purchase online 24/7 at modwalls.com.
Can you create cool modern tile designs on a budget?
I’m here to say yes! Cool modern tile design on a budget is achievable.
Take this for example:
I recently had the opportunity to spend a weekend at a cool mid-century hotel right in my own town.
photo credit Destination360
The Santa Cruz Dream Inn has been a local institution since the early 1960’s and was recently purchased and renovated by the Joie de Vivre hotels corporation. You can get the whole scoop here.
Being the huge fan of mid-century design that I am, I was loving all of the colorful modern touches everywhere I looked.
The lobby with its color-blocked carpet and beachy cool style sets the tone to let you know that the sand and boardwalk are just steps away.
When you are in the room, with its soft palette and color-blocked curtains (Are you sensing a theme here?) you become instantly relaxed by the sound of waves washing up on the sand right outside.
photo credit Orbitz
We were in one of the tower rooms on the 5th floor. From this vantage point, looking outside to a wide expanse of water, you can imagine yourself to be anywhere: Malibu, the South of France, an Ocean liner or in our case 15 minutes from home but seemingly a world away.
The décor had plenty of interesting elements, like this cool green lamp that I’m coveting.
And being a tile person, you know I was most intrigued by the bathroom. This is where the budget conscious tile design was hanging out. They used mad popular color-blocking to maximum effect with a combination of 2” and 4” ceramic tiles in a lively mix of bright white, yellow and orange along with a 2” matte taupe/gray tile on the floors. So good and so economical at the same time with big design impact! Feast upon it for yourself:
This is ordinary ceramic tile in standard square sizes. The type of tile you may even be able to find in your local big box hardware store. Nevertheless when installed in this way it becomes artful and perfectly befitting the modern, mid-century setting. You can achieve this modern color-blocked design with just about any tile manufacturer’s lowest priced tile, such as our own Brio® glass mosaic collection.
Our stylish weekend was topped off by a full moon over the Santa Cruz harbor and we had the perfect vantage point from which to view it in all its glory:
What’s not to love about that? I’ll be back Dream Inn- stay dreamy!
You may also like the tile and color-blocking in this related post. Or this one
Modwalls is making tile modern with colorful and unique designs that are in stock and available for purchase online 24/7 at modwalls.com.
Our Fab.com Sale Starts TODAY!
You do not want to miss this sale!
We’re ending the year right with our best tile sale ever on Fab.com. But you gotta act now; the sale ends in just 3 days!
We’ve got over 30 products available at the lowest prices we’ve ever offered. Wanna see? Look Here.
Here’s a little teaser we created with a quick look at some of our offerings…
We loooove the good folks at Fab.com, so this is pretty exciting!
Atomic Ranch’d! Hot New Brio Glass Tile Blends As Seen In Atomic Ranch Magazine
Design collaborations are our new BIG thing here at modwalls®.
It started with our Lush® Henry Road collection in 2009, and this year we’ve introduced our Lush® Rex Ray Studio for modwalls® and our Clayhaus for modwalls® collections. We’ll admit it… we’re kind of on a roll. 
Our goal is to continuously provide fresh and inspiring tile designs by collaborating with cool peoples, like the retro-fabulous folks at Atomic Ranch Magazine who designed these two mod-tastic 3/4″ glass tile blends, Brio® MidCentury Palette and Brio® Blue Riff.
Check out these two beauties in the Winter 2011 issue of Atomic Ranch Magazine, on newsstands now!
Oh la lovely!
Available now for under $7.00 per square foot. Can’t beat that!
My Full Circle Moment with Rex Ray
I discovered Fine Artist Rex Ray’s work about 4 years ago. Two girlfriends and I found ourselves in San Francisco for the evening and decided to try The Slanted Door restaurant for the first time. It was a busy Saturday night and without reservations we were seated at the large communal table in the back of the restaurant. What luck that was. I was seated directly across from one of the most exuberant pieces of art I’d ever seen.
Rex Ray's art at The Slanted Door courtesy of redvisitor.com
The piece was a Rex Ray. I then noticed other works by this artist were placed throughout the main dining room. I was instantly a fan and have followed his work ever since.
Flash forward a few years and, while working away here at modwalls I received a call one day from Rex Ray’s licensing agent wanting to discuss putting his designs on our tile. I could hardly believe it. We had been promoting good design through creative partnerships like our Tattoo tiles featuring the work of local Santa Cruz artists and our Henry Road for modwalls with the fresh textile designs of Paula Smail on our Lush® glass tile. Those collections gave Rex Ray’s people the idea that we would be the right company to work with him to bring his Rex Ray Studio designs to tile for residential and hospitality projects.
From my giddy first meeting with Rex and his team to our launch of the Rex Ray Studio for modwalls collaboration I have been pinching myself with delight. We showed the first round of designs called Type Tiles at Dwell on Design in Los Angeles this past June. It was a favorite of the attendees who visited our booth and was even noted at a pick of the show on the LA Times Home Blog,
Rex Ray Studio for modwalls glass subway tile
These Gorgeous collages of Fonts and Magazine Print are available in Black or White on 4×12 glass Lush® brand subway tiles. Each design has a 2 square foot repeat to create a wallpaper effect when laid together. You can also mix and match the designs by mounting them brick style.
For Those Who Love Type We Salute You!
Rex Ray Studio for modwalls® Type Tiles are hand made to order in the USA in just about 3 weeks.
The next chapter in my fan affair with Rex is playing out now. A few weeks ago he and his business manager Tim came to our offices to work on the next designs for the collection. They will be stunning I tell you! As we all stood around the table working out the new tile designs I was happily remembering that evening at the Slanted Door when it all started for me, and I had to pinch myself again.
Me n Rex
Besides the gift of their time, Rex and Tim also gave me my very own signed Rex Ray original:
Swoon worthy!
It’s hung across from my desk on my bright green office wall, the same vantage point I had when I saw my very first Rex Ray four years ago. I get to stare at it every day now and it makes me happy on many levels.
Yep….Full Circle!
Looking good in this month’s Sunset Magazine
We picked up our copy of this month’s Sunset Magazine and low and behold, we saw our tile staring back at us!
The October 2011 issue includes a feature on the Glen Oaks Big Sur lodge in Big Sur, CA, and the bar on the right is covered in our Lush® 1×2 Carmelita glass tile blend.
Look familar? If you’re one of our regular blog readers, you might recognize the tile on the bar from our Designer Spotlight on the interior designer, Steve Justrich of Justrich Design.
We love seeing this stuff!
Tile, Fashion and LAX: Color-Blocking Is Worth Copying
Have you ever flown through LAX and notice the color blocked mosaic tile tunnel walls?
We made the super quick trip from SF to LA this past weekend (55 minute flight, baby), and it struck us how the 50 year old mosaic design is back at the height of fashion right now!
LAX mosaic tile (from Apartment Therapy)
If you’ve had your eyes open, you’ve probably noticed color-blocking EVERYWHERE these last few seasons.
(Fom Fashion INDIE)
The LAX installation just reminded us of how freakin’ cool mosaic glass tile like our Brio® tile really is!
So classic, its literally been around for thousands of years, and yet its still fresh and modern, even 50 years after being installed. Mosaic tile really is on-trend all of the time. It’s très chic.
Love our Brio® mosaic tile but feel like color-blocking may be a bit too bold for your space? You might want to try a solid-color mosaic for your first project.
This bathroom (which was featured in Dwell), has our Brio® 3/4″ mosaic tile in the color “Tarragon.”
modwalls® Brio® glass mosaic tile “Tarragon."
Or you can color-block using different mediums. This kitchen features modwalls® Brio® 3/4″ “Clear Red” tile on the kitchen backsplash and its complimented by 2 colors of orange paint and dark cabinets.
How would you color-block? Color-block your clothes? Color-block your home? What’s your take on this vibrant trend?
The Dwell on Design Photo Tour Continues!
Still coming down from this whirlwind event!
Big props to Felipe and crew at Fedex Kinkos on Wilshire for making our "Feet" poster super fast!
Here's John from Semi Handmade with biz owner David Bousfield setting up our custom made credenza with our Rex Ray Studio for modwalls tile.
Tim from Rex Ray Studio hanging out by the Orange MOD tile that topped our custom credenza.
Sasaki's "Heartbeat" event was very cool.
Loved these pendant lights...
Awesome play structure by Playgoda.
And the highlight of the whole show… The Modern Living by ecofabulous showhouse featuring modwalls Viridian 98% Recycled Glass tile and 100% Recycled Glass Pebbles, and StarGlass recycled glass grout!
modwalls 1x2 Viridian Brix Cotton tile in the kitchen.
A little closer up... can you see our StarGlass "Diamond" grout? It was used on all of the tile installations.
Our Viridian Pearl Moonlight tile. P.S. The wood counter is reclaimed from the architects wife's childhood home... Aw!
Viridian Pearl Moonlight + Recycled Glass Pebbles + StarGlass grout. (The grout was highlighted on the tour!)
Still more to come from our LA excursion… !
