Classic terrazzo is unlikely to be the first choice for home decoration. It is cast on-site with stone and adhesive. It is difficult to change and expensive after one-time molding, so it is more suitable for industrial decoration.

Terrazzo CRW208

If you are interested in terrazzo elements and want to add a different visual effect to your home, here are some suggestions for you.

Terrazzo Matching Skills

Terrazzo is a material with a strong personality, just like leather, stainless steel, and glass give people a cold and elite texture, fur, brass, and marble give people a dramatic elegance and nobility, terrazzo is more intimate and a mark of the old times.

What you can associate with is the floral prints in the countryside, the wooden houses in the forest, the white beaches, the deep wilderness, and the sweetness of candy. It has a strong presence and will steal the limelight of other materials if you are not careful. So if you want to keep people away from the high-end feeling, you have to be careful with terrazzo.

So, how to match it? Although terrazzo has a variety of styles, it can be divided into two groups of large and small particles.

In small-grain terrazzo, the stone is a supporting role. The first thing we notice is the base color, so it can be used in a large area, and then it can be pressed with plain colored tiles or latex paint.
Large particles emphasize color collision, which is more suitable for pure color spaces to use it as a finishing touch.
But, although terrazzo is good, it is not suitable for the whole house. If it is too much, it will be rustic.

Looking at the rollover cases of the last century, the small bathroom was made as dark as a cave. Even if it is a modern terrazzo, it is not easy to copy it and move it into the house.
The designer’s case emphasizes the material and shape itself, just like high-end fashion, although it is high-end, few people dare to wear it on the street.

Material selection and construction of terrazzo

The “terrazzo” on the market now is actually three things-cast-in-place terrazzo, prefabricated terrazzo, and terrazzo patterned tiles.

First of all, if you are a fundamentalist and want to use real terrazzo, you need to prepare a sufficient budget.

There are two ways to do fundamentalism: cast-in-place and prefabricated.

Although I like the magical production process of cast-in-place terrazzo, I really don’t recommend you toss at home. The grinding and polishing process will produce a lot of dust and wastewater, and the property management will easily come to your door. Once you get tired of it or there is a problem, the maintenance cost is also extremely high.
Prefabricated terrazzo is relatively convenient, but it will not save money. The material itself is not expensive, but with transportation, paving, grinding, maintenance, etc., the price is about 400 per square meter.

In addition, it should be reminded that the final polished effect of prefabricated terrazzo is completely different from when you choose it. Ask the merchant for a polished rendering before deciding.

If you just like terrazzo elements and want to try terrazzo tiles (rock slabs), then I have to say something you don’t like to hear.

The biggest charm of terrazzo is randomness, while tiles are the product of assembly lines and standardization. The two products are essentially completely contradictory, which is why many friends will fail when they put on terrazzo tiles.

Each material has its own characteristics and charm, and should match its own unique design language.

If you don’t accept the shortcomings of wooden floors, choose patterns that are more suitable for tiles to express, rather than letting tiles simulate wooden floors. It can’t simulate the comfort and naturalness of wood, nor can it simulate the unique texture of wood.
Back to terrazzo itself, although I don’t recommend it, if you really want to paste terrazzo tiles, you have to follow the characteristics of real terrazzo.

Don’t choose small tiles or buy single-format ones. There are many joints when they are pieced together, and the patterns are also regularly distributed. It’s a waste of effort.

If you want to choose, choose large pieces with random patterns. Stick them vertically, and two pieces can reach the top. Choose a color similar to the base color for the seam, and the appearance will be integrated.
In addition to walls and floors, countertops, sinks, and bars are very suitable for terrazzo embellishment. Terrazzo has good overall hardness and toughness, and is non-slip and easy to clean.

In essence, the quartz countertops we use are also a type of terrazzo, except that marble is replaced with quartz particles and cement is replaced with resin.

So we can choose to use resin-based terrazzo to make the countertop, and now the terrazzo structure is finer and denser, unlike the past when a few drops of soy sauce would bleed, it is safer and more hygienic.
In terms of soft furnishings, there are many terrazzo dining tables, chairs, lamps, etc. available on the market, and they are also easy to match.

A little smaller, buy a terrazzo vase, candlestick, tableware, tray, cup, wall clock, which can add a lot of fun to your space. You can match it at will and it will become a small corner in your home that you can’t put down.

Terrazzo is one of my favorite materials. It can be simple and restrained, or passionate and unrestrained, as gentle as jade, or rough and wild. It is simple, but it can be savored for a long time.

This material became popular in the entire design circle in 2018 and 2019, and there were also many matching that followed the trend and made people black out.

Now that the heat has come down, everyone has become calmer. Those who use it will regard it as a treasure, and those who don’t like it will not even glance at it.

Terrazzo has gone from being forgotten by history to becoming popular again, and then to a timeless material that has settled down. It has become an alternative option for everyone’s decoration, and everyone will really think of it when they need it.

Terrazzo CRW502

In my opinion, this is the moment when “popularity” really matures.
Compared with the so-called popular trends driven by marketing such as “dopamine” and “Maillard”, I prefer to see the rebirth of terrazzo, a classic art. It is not just people’s nostalgia or fashion cycle. Every time it returns, it will bring new ideas that will make people’s eyes shine.

In contrast, terrazzo has evolved from a handful of cement and a handful of stones to today’s flourishing flowers. What is condensed is the endless imagination of designers and craftsmen, which is unrestrained, but the core is simple and plain.

That is “innovation”, something we cannot lose.