Floor Shows

Thanks to a merger of the ancient art of mosaic and modern craftsmanship, the same kind of intricate tile designs that have long graced the floors of castles and cathedrals is making a comeback.

Only this time, it’s everyday homeowners--not kings or cardinals--who want fancy tile flooring in their entryways, dining rooms and baths.

Home decorators looking for an upscale alternative to wall-to-wall carpeting or vinyl flooring have already decked out their floors with polished wood, marble, limestone and other fine materials. Now they’re going one step up and hiring tile artisans to create works of art underfoot.

Paul Trader and Peter Vlasic have created mosaics inspired by Old World flooring for modern homes, hotels and commercial buildings throughout Orange County.

Their company, Prestige Designs of Laguna Hills, makes medallions out of stone, arranging tiny cut pieces of tile like jigsaw puzzles and installing them into tile and wood floors. Their swirling, colorful mosaics can be seen in Edwards theaters nationwide, including the Irvine Spectrum and Newport Beach theaters. Yet they primarily design custom mosaics for homes.

“I don’t like plain floors,” Trader said.

Trader, 48, and Vlasic, 47, began working in tile separately while growing up in their native Czechoslovakia; the two did not meet until they came to the United States.

“You see more tile floors over there. Here, you see more carpet,” Trader said.

Vlasic started installing tile floors when he was 15. Trader learned how to cut, set and install tile from his father, who was a tradesman in the stone business.

“As a boy I watched him work all the time,” he said.

Trader came to the U.S. in 1977, and Vlasic immigrated about five years later. Both moved to Orange County and found work installing tile floors. They met through friends and decided to form a construction company about 10 years ago. Over time, neither of them was content to install just plain tile.

“I wanted to create,” Trader said. “I didn’t want to keep doing the same floor.”

Three years ago, they formed Prestige Designs to concentrate on their tile medallions. Steven Brooks, a graduate of the Ceramic Tile Institute of America in Los Angeles, who had worked as a tile contractor since 1978, became the company’s third designer; he also handles sales and marketing.

Samples of their work fill the company’s showroom. Among the designs: pinwheels, spirographs, diamonds and starbursts. Some mosaics look like Chinese checkerboards, others like spider webs.

They get ideas for designs from all over, from centuries-old cathedrals in Europe to Las Vegas casinos. Vlasic points to a mosaic that resembles a cut diamond; he got the idea while playing the slot machines in Vegas.

Something about a diamond motif on the slot machine caught his eye, and he came up with a winning medallion.

Customers can choose one of Prestige’s own designs, set in colors to match their decor, or they can order a custom work. Some decorators bring in sketches or photographs of mosaics they’ve admired in Europe. The designers draw a sketch of the medallion, make a pattern and cut the stone to match.

“We can take any ideas people have and make them into a medallion,” Brooks said. “It’s a blend of Old World craftsmanship and new technology.”

In a small factory behind their showroom, bins are filled with marble, granite and limestone shaped like sugar cubes. Workers use electric diamond-bladed saws or hand tools to cut the stone. The medallions are made of either a mosaic of colored cubes or larger, free-form shapes of cut stone that fit together to make a design.

The slabs of stone come from around the world, including Turkey, China, Italy and Canada. Among the wide variety of colors: granite in sparkling midnight blue or jet black, rose-hued marble and latte-colored limestone.

At one table, workers piece together a medallion of a pink-colored rose encircled by a green border, custom-designed for a private residence, and an elaborate mosaic of grapevines that Vlasic thinks would be ideal for a wine cellar.

The mosaics are assembled by hand, piece by tiny piece, just the way it’s been done for centuries. Yet here the tiles are set on a rigid, epoxy-covered board instead of the floor itself; that technique allows the work to be done in the factory, not on the job site. In addition, it’s easier to set the tiles so they lie perfectly flat.

“The medallion has to be nice and smooth,” Trader said. “If a piece is set too high, people are going to trip on it.”

Some companies use computer-guided machinery to cut and set the tile, but Vlasic said the end result there is “too rote, too perfect.”

“People like the handmade look,” he said.

It’s the mosaics’ tiny imperfections that give the works the kind of artisan-crafted look that home decorators want.

Once assembled on a board, the finished work is installed in the floor in a couple of hours. Most people want the medallions installed in their entryways.

“They want it to be the first thing their visitors see when they walk into the house,” Trader said.

The round mosaics are especially popular in Spanish-style homes with circular entries. Medallions also serve as the centerpieces of dining rooms or living rooms, and some people want them on the floors of their private baths.

The cost for a medallion ranges from about $1,500 to $3,000, depending on the size and complexity of the design. Each work takes about a week to complete.

Though Prestige Designs also installs complete tile floors, the medallions can be placed in an existing tile or wood floor--if the covering is the right thickness. Most of Prestige’s medallions are made for new homes.

“Most houses have the same floor plan, the same carpet,” Trader said. “People want a medallion because they want something no one else has.”