Interior Design Trend: Carpet Tiles Rewrite the Book on Floor Covering

The question is: Are you brave enough to decorate a room with carpet tiles? In case you've been living on the moon for the past few years, carpet tiles - loose carpet pieces that can be joined together with other pieces to create a free-form rug arrangement - are providing a fascinating option for interior design.

Vorwerk Carpet - Free-Form Carpet Tiles

We once were locked into three floor fashion options: (a) uncovered flooring like stone or tiles or wood planks, (b) wall-to-wall carpeting (see top photo, a beautiful design by Vorwerk Carpet), or (c) area rugs over the flooring material. But with carpet tiles, we're freer to create patterns and shapes on our floors. Art is no longer just the province of the four walls in a room!

Vorwerk Carpet - Free-Form Carpet TilesVorwerk Carpet - Free-Form Carpet Tiles

As you can see from the Vorwerk Carpet tiles above or the FLOR carpet tiles below, one can create patterns that form an area rug or asymmetrical shapes and various floating carpet pieces can decorate the floor. The challenge is to not compete with the decorating in the rest of the room, but if you have a stark space that could use a free-form carpet tile solution, by all means go wild and have your flooring shout out, "Look at me!"

FLOR - Carpet Tiles (Dashed Off pattern, Jailbird color)

FLOR - Carpet Tiles (All Dolled Up pattern, Grey color)

FLOR - Carpet Tiles (Suit Yourself pattern, Raffia color)

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

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Explore the Beautiful Ceramics of Italy

Ceramics of Italy is an International Contemporary Furniture Fair exhibit coming up that will feature nine of Italy’s leading ceramic tile companies and their new designs. The ICFF will be held from May 19-22, 2012 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. The show focuses primarily on modern design, and the Ceramics of Italy exhibit will show off fresh tile trends for floor and wall coverings in booth #1432. Exhibitors include Atlas Concorde; Ceramiche Refin; Cooperativa Ceramica d’Imola; Cotto d’Este; Fap Ceramiche; Mirage Granito Ceramico; Il Ferrone; Sant’Agostino; and Settecento mosaici e ceramiche d’arte.

Expect to see many state-of-the-art flooring and wall covering developments.

• Urban motifs
• Wood, stone, and concrete looks created with ink-jet technology
• LEED-compliant tiles
• Super-thin porcelains

 

According to Franco Manfredini, president of Confindustria Ceramica:

We are excited to be attending the show for the fourth time. New York is an important market for our Italian companies and the architects and designers we meet every year make it an event we cannot miss.

Italian manufacturers continue to focus on both aesthetic and technological trends that are both bold and progressive in the tile industry. For updated information on Ceramics of Italy’s participation at ICFF or to view new products launching this season, visit the Italian Tile website.

Bonus

Click here to read Sheffield's exclusive photo tour: A Day at the Kips Bay Show House.

As lead curriculum developer, it's fun to check out new flooring and wall covering products. If you're interested in learning more about the exciting world of interior design, then we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

• Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.
• Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.