10 ways to decorate your home with travertine
The beauty of marble with the ease of installation and replacement that limestone brings, travertine’s main strengths lie in its versatility, bold veining, and subtle toning.
Travertine goes with just about anything. Indoors it works as an elegant tiling piece due to its striking patina. Outdoors, it’s the perfect lining to a sunswept yard or pool. Plus, it’s made of natural materials, making it much more environmentally friendly than alternatives such as porcelain.
Travertine as flooring
Travertine is a beautifully textured addition to any house. It exudes the same elegance as marble and provides the same connotations of prosperity and wealth therein. It’s also extremely durable - the Romans built the Colosseum from travertine, if you want a testament to how long it can last - so you won’t need to worry about having to re-tile in the near future. If you do somehow manage to chip it, it’s a lot easier to replace than porcelain or ceramic tiling.
Flooring is also where another major strength of travertine shines through - the sheer variety of style and pattern available. It’s available in just about any colour imaginable, and in a huge amount of styles and cuts, meaning that it’ll suit just about any design philosophy you can throw at it.
Travertine as paving
Travertine pavers are highly slip resistant, making them not only a beautiful, but also functional poolside choice. Their texture also flows well with the watery surface of a pool, making for a seamless transition.
Outside of nautical environments, it works equally well to floor a patio or garden path. Travertine can be found in both smoothly polished and more rough, natural stone look for paving garden paths.
As a feature wall
The natural stone cut we mentioned earlier looks brilliant for a striking feature wall. Travertine maintains its texturing in a more raw state, making for a visually pleasant focal point to draw the eye to across a room.
As wall cladding
Travertine is durable enough to withstand a century of the elements; it’ll probably do for cladding too. It’s not the most commonly used material for it these days, however it can give your home a rustic, dated look if you’re trying to cultivate it.
As fireplace paving
Unpolished travertine promotes an incredible rustic look befitting any fireplace yearning for an olden timey look. If you’re more into the sleek and modern, simply substitute for a more smooth finish, and you have a chic, modern replacement.
As a benchtop
Finished and sealed, travertine has enough variety to run complimentary as a bench or countertop to pretty much any colour scheme. Be careful deploying it too close to a sink, however, as some varieties can be quite porous. Additionally, travertine requires sealing and grouting to prevent staining.
Once you’ve overcome these initial concerns, you’ll have a unique, textured focal point for the middle of your kitchen.
As garden benches (and seats)
You know what compliments travertine flooring? Travertine benches!
Even if you don’t go with travertine for your outdoor tiling, if you’re the sort of household that likes to spend time relaxing in the garden, consider some elegantly textured, ornate garden furniture. If you did go with travertine for your outdoor tiling, there’s more than enough subtle or overt differences between cut and style to provide a visually different yet still striking bench or surface for a backyard dining table during the summer or a reading nook in the mornings.
As stair treads
Travertine is slip and freeze resistant, making it great tiling to use for staircases. It remains cool in heat and glows radiant in the sun, making it perfect for the Australian climate.
Consider keeping it a less polishing tread if you’re using it to finish off poolside flooring to help with slippage.
As a contrast to dark wood
Lighter polished travertine acts as the perfect foil to a room decked out with dark, burnished wood. Richer woods such as mahogany suit an interplay between their respective whorls and textures, and both exude elegance and prosperity together.
As a façade
Finally, a travertine façade makes a home look extravagantly wealthy from the outside, and the effect can only be described through images. Ancient churches such as the Basilica di Santa Francesca Romana in Rome still look stunning today with their weathered, marbled front. It may not be the cheapest method to decorate a house, but certainly an aspirational one.
Get in touch with our team to discuss further all the pro's of Travertine