Diamond Checkerboard Floor

A diamond checkerboard in gray and white runs through an entry hall and past the foot of a staircase. Because the squares sit on point, the floor draws the eye down the hall, and it reads very differently in the two photos as the light shifts.

What to look at

On point layouts live or die on the first line. The layout was struck from the center of the hall, so the diamonds are symmetrical from both walls and the cuts at the edges are equal. Every wall cut is a triangle, and the triangles were cut to match from side to side. The joints are narrow and the veining in the gray tile is mixed from several boxes so the pattern does not form stripes.

How work like this is set

A medallion, checkerboard or runner is only as good as its layout. We measure from the point you will stand when you enter the room, mark the center lines, dry-fit the pattern and adjust until the borders and the cuts at the walls look intentional. Then the tile is set in a bed thick enough to keep the pieces in a single plane.

If you want something similar

Before you pick floor tile, find out how flat the floor is and what it is made of. A concrete slab, a plywood subfloor and an old tile floor each need a different approach. Send us a photo and the approximate size and we will tell you what we would do. We work in Cerritos and nearby, and the matching service is Residential Tile Installation.