Can't decide, porcelain or limestone in dark grey.

[rich89]

Been reading about the horrors of black limestone and seen the lovely looking dark grey porcelain at the local paving supplier.

We have an 120 year old house in the country and I am looking at a total area to cover of 150sqm.

I like the idea of low maintenance porcelain and I like the clean look of it, but worried it won't suit the house.

Was going to go with carbon limestone, but have seen how pale and patchy it can end up. Some I saw was even lighter that the light grey limestone.

Any reasons to avoid porcelain?

Will black limestone be ok, if sealed annually?

The patio area is exposed and gets full sun. South and west of the house.

[Tony McC]

If you shop around, there are porcelains out there that are virtually indistibuishable from black kadappha limestone, and others that near-perfectly replicate the black Brazilian slate.

The only giveaway is the uniformity and regularity: to the trainjed eye, we can readily spot the lack of flaws and variation and 'character' that makes the limestones, slate and basalts as appealinga s they are.

If you do go with a porcelain, choose a laying pattern that is as non-regular as possible. So, avoid stackbond at all costs, only use stretcher bond if you must, and, if you can get two or more sizes, look to implement a herringbone or even a random layout.

The other 'trick' to de-emphasise the regularity of porcelain, is to incorporate a complementary paver along with it, either as an edging course or as panel infills. Setts of, say blaxk basalt or slate can work particularly well at distracting the eye from the uniformity of the porcelain.

[rich89]

If you shop around, there are porcelains out there that are virtually indistibuishable from black kadappha limestone, and others that near-perfectly replicate the black Brazilian slate.

The only giveaway is the uniformity and regularity: to the trainjed eye, we can readily spot the lack of flaws and variation and 'character' that makes the limestones, slate and basalts as appealinga s they are.

If you do go with a porcelain, choose a laying pattern that is as non-regular as possible. So, avoid stackbond at all costs, only use stretcher bond if you must, and, if you can get two or more sizes, look to implement a herringbone or even a random layout.

The other 'trick' to de-emphasise the regularity of porcelain, is to incorporate a complementary paver along with it, either as an edging course or as panel infills. Setts of, say blaxk basalt or slate can work particularly well at distracting the eye from the uniformity of the porcelain.

It's been interesting looking at Porcelain.

Those with regular repeat printed surface patterns don't look great.

Some I've seen have a printed pattern that you'd swear is a rough riven look, but is actually dead smooth.

Our local paving place has some in a roman/opus bond pattern which would mirror our travertine floor and at the same time would avoid that horrible stacked look.

It's in a nice dark green/grey.

For some reason they grouted it in white. I think a dark grout would look much better.


One slab I did really like was called Manhattan Dunkle Grey and in the right light is even had a sparkle. Too bad they said it was discontinued. The date code on the boxes was 2000... So maybe he'd got hold of a job lot...