Material · Collection
Large-format porcelain panels
Past about 48 inches a tile stops behaving like a tile. It needs a flatter substrate, different tools — suction lifts, a leveling system, a bridge saw — and a crew that has carried a sheet that size before. What it gives back is a wall with two joints where tile has four hundred feet of grout, and a floor that reads as one surface from the door to the far wall.
These are the panels: gauged porcelain in sheets up to 5 × 10 feet, in the marble, stone and concrete looks the format was made for. Book-matched across a kitchen island and down both sides, mitred at the corners so the veining runs round rather than restarting, run up a shower wall in two pieces. We keep full sheets racked upright in the showroom because there is no other way to judge a pattern that size.
It is the house specialty. The lead installer is CTEF-certified, the crews are ours, and the substrate work — which is most of the job at this scale — is written as its own line on the proposal so you can compare it between bids. If the wall or floor is not flat enough, we say so before anything is ordered.
The install is large-format porcelain panels; what changes past 48 inches is the guide.
In the showroom
Full slabs and full planks at 6823 14th St W, Bradenton — not sample chips. Bring the plans.
The pieces in this collection are being photographed. They are on the floor of the showroom now, and a call gets you the current stock list the same day.
Questions about large-format porcelain panels
Are panels priced by the box or by the slab?
By the slab. A panel is a sheet up to five feet by ten, and it is bought as that sheet — which changes two things about the number. Waste is more expensive when it happens: a broken 12 × 24 tile is a few dollars, a cracked panel is most of a slab. And the layout decides how many slabs a wall or a floor takes, so the allowance for cuts comes from your drawing rather than from a rule of thumb.
The useful way to compare two quotes is per project, with the substrate work itemised on its own line. Large-format porcelain against tile says why that line is usually the one missing from the cheaper bid.
Can I see the whole slab before I buy?
Yes — we keep full sheets racked upright in the showroom, because there is no other way to judge a pattern that size. A veined marble-look that reads as calm on a sample card can read as busy across a ten-foot wall, and the only way to know is to stand in front of the sheet.
Bring the drawing. Which sheets go where, which pair book-matches across the island and which face runs up the shower wall are decided at the rack, before anything is ordered.
What is book-matching?
Two consecutive sheets of the same pattern hung as a mirrored pair, so the veining opens from the seam like the pages of a book. It is the single most recognisable thing about a panel install and it cannot be done in 12 × 24 tile, because there is no continuous pattern to mirror.
It is chosen from the rack, sheet by sheet, and the same sheets can be mitred at a corner so the veining runs round rather than restarting — down both sides of a kitchen island, or up and across a shower wall in two pieces. Porcelain slabs on shower walls shows the seams a book-matched shower actually has.
Porcelain panel or real marble — what is the difference?
The look is the marble's; everything else is porcelain's. A panel is dramatically lighter than the stone it imitates, which matters on a wall, a fireplace surround and any renovation that is not adding structure. It never needs sealing, and acid does nothing to it — a real advantage over marble in a kitchen, where lemon and wine etch stone.
What the two share is the demand on the surface under them: a flat substrate, flatter than most existing slabs, and a crew that has carried a sheet that size before. The panel service is where that work is described, and it is the house specialty.
Sold here, installed by us
See it at full scale before you decide.
Twenty minutes in the showroom answers more than a week of scrolling. We lay the selections out on full slabs and tell you what each one needs underneath it.
