Cement encaustic tiles are beautiful, but they're cold, hard on a homeowner's joints and can arrive in pieces after a bumpy (and expensive) shipping route. Wood has none of those drawbacks, but no one manufactured a wood tile with the fashionable patterns of its colder, harder, easier-to-break cousins—until now. Newcomer Mirth Studio, based in Charleston, N.C., figured out how to print wild and lasting patterns onto wood tiles that are a breeze to install. The wood tiles are a 1-square-foot tongue-and-groove engineered product with a 2-millimeter hickory or oak wear layer. After a pattern is printed digitally onto the surface of the tile, it is finished with 10 coats of UV-cured urethane. The tiles can be glued onto concrete or plywood, and the company recommends its customers hire a professional wood floor installer to do the job. The tiles can be used for an entire floor or inlaid into an existing floor, and smaller tiles are available for stair risers. There are more than 100 patterns to choose from. The designs come from the sketchpad of owner Sally Bennett, a trained artist, and from designers and artists she admires. Customers can also create custom designs. The best part, in Bennett's mind, is that the tiles still look like wood, but wood that Louis Vuitton touched.
