Subway Tile - brands and quality?

Hello kind people! Been looking over some posts and gazing jealously at the gorgeous photos of bathrooms here. We are remodeling a basement bathroom in our 1910 home and are doing the shower/walls in subway tile, which leads me to my question - any particular brand of tile you folks would recommend? or run screaming from (ie CHEAP tile)? Been to Lowe's and HD and some tile/flooring stores (which seem rather outrageously expensive) and am rather clueless (obviously) about quality and what to look for.

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Many thanks and please feel free to post more photos of your subway tiled bathrooms... getting some great ideas here. :)

Sandy

Avid DIYer

Join Date: Nov 2009

Link to KAIYAO

Location: Chesterfield, MO

Posts: 56

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I don't have the carton for this MS International tile, but I do have a sample (that I bought from HD). The back has a stamp "Premium Porcelain". There's no other mention of a brand. There's "A B" near the lower left corner and "Made in China" in the lower right.

There was no claim of this being rectified porcelain but if I have any clue of what I'm talking about, then I'd say this is rectified. (Note: I may not know what I'm talking about.) The edges are sharp--there is no bevel that I can see or feel. Of the 5 tiles they had on the sample rack, all were the same size.

The color layer is likely to be very thin given the PEI 3 rating. Based on what's been posted in this thread and what I've found via google, PEI 3 is a common rating for ceramic. Porcelain generally has PEI 4 or 5.

As much as I like the look of this tile, I'm concerned by the PEI rating and if it will last 15 years in the foyer, family room, and kitchen. We have no plans to move until the kids are out of the house--and maybe not even then.

We are going to destroy this tile we have--see how thick the color layer is, how much abuse it takes to chip it, etc.

In the mean time, I'm going to keep searching for a PEI 4 or 5 tile in the style we like that fits our budget. Keep discussing brands and quality here, though. It'll help more than just me.

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Craig

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