Gold (metallic) Skirting Tile 152x152mm

Yes. Every Artworks piece in this finish is rated for internal walls, wet and dry, which covers a shower enclosure, wet room walls, the wall behind a bath and a splashback. The ceramic body is unaffected by steam and there is nothing to seal.

The thing to plan for is maintenance rather than suitability. A metallic face shows water spotting and limescale sooner than a coloured glaze does, and the usual cure — a descaling spray — is exactly what harms it. In a hard water area, wipe the surface down while it is still wet instead of cleaning it chemically afterwards, and it will stay bright.

What it is not rated for is a floor. Artworks is a wall range throughout.

No. Artworks is a wall glaze and is not rated for foot traffic, and a metallic finish has a second problem on top of that: the brightness lives on the surface, so walking on it would wear it away. The decorated tiles carrying real gold lustre are the same.

In practice this rarely constrains anything, because the pieces made in this finish are a skirting, two narrow mouldings and a half tile — bands and borders rather than fields. Tell us the room and we will put a proper floor tile beside it. Call 01344 620211, or come and see us in Ascot.

A little, as with any fired metal, and it shows differently from the variation you get on a coloured glaze. What differs is the depth and evenness of the lustre rather than the colour underneath it, and on a surface bought for how it catches light that is worth taking seriously.

Order the whole job in one go and ask us to confirm the batch when we book it, then keep a spare piece from it. Because these pieces run as short bands rather than across whole walls, keeping a single continuous run within one batch is usually straightforward if the order is placed together.

Warm water, a mild detergent and a soft cloth, and nothing else. That is not the usual formality: the Gold finish is a real precious-metal lustre fired onto the face of the tile, and it behaves like metal rather than like a coloured glaze.

Keep away from it: acidic limescale removers and descaling sprays, cream cleaners, scouring pads, anything gritty, and bleach-based sprays left to stand. Any of those will dull or strip the metal, and unlike a mark on an ordinary glaze it cannot be polished back. The comparison to hold in mind is a gilded frame or a gold-rimmed plate, neither of which you would take a scouring pad to.

In a shower or above a basin in a hard water area, the answer is to wipe the surface while it is still wet rather than to let deposits build and then attack them chemically. Looked after that way it keeps its brightness indefinitely, and the ceramic body beneath is as durable as any other tile we sell.

The four plain pieces and the four decorated tiles are usually in stock. Several of them are sold by the piece or as a set rather than by the square metre, so send your run lengths over and we will confirm quantities and availability before anything is committed.

Delivery is free on UK orders over £1,000. You are very welcome at our family-run showroom at 67 High Street, Ascot, where the Original Style range is on display, or speak to the team on 01344 620211.

Four, and we stock all four: the Half Tile, the Skirting Tile 152x152mm, the Sigma Moulding 152x26mm and the Omega Moulding 152x12mm. That is the complete list Original Style make in this finish.

There is no field tile, cornice, corner trim or ornamented moulding in Gold. It is a finishing metal rather than a tiling one, and it is meant to be used against plain tiling in another Artworks colour — a band at the top of a tiled field, a skirting course, a fine line closing an edge. A whole wall of it is not something the range is built to do.

We also hold four Gold decorative tiles: the Fleur de Lis border and the Fleur de Lis two-tile set, each fired on a Jet Black ground and on a County White ground. Those carry real gold lustre on someone else's ground rather than being Gold tiles themselves, and they are the usual way people work the metal into a period scheme.

Original Style answer this one themselves, and it is the only time in the whole Artworks range that they name a specific partner colour: Gold is gorgeous on its own, they say, or mixed with Jet Black for added drama. That is worth taking seriously, because it is a manufacturer telling you how their own glaze wants using.

It is also a pairing we can supply properly. We hold Jet Black across the fullest piece list of any Artworks colour — field tiles, half tiles, a large brick, both bevelled metros, a rectangle slip, skirting, cornice, internal and external corner trims, ten mouldings, six handed corner pieces and four wrapping pieces. So a scheme built on that recommendation is not a gold band against whatever black you can find: the whole surrounding wall can be drawn from one range. Two of the Gold decorative tiles are made expressly for it — the Fleur de Lis border and the two-tile set, both fired on a Jet Black ground.

Beyond that: gold sits naturally with warm whites and creams, with brass, bronze and unlacquered fittings, with mahogany and other warm timbers, and with marble. Against a cool grey or a blue it will read as a deliberate contrast rather than a harmony, which can be exactly what you want, but it is worth choosing on purpose.

Original Style make two metallic finishes in the Artworks range and they are made in exactly the same four pieces, at the same prices, with the same fired lustre. The choice between them is a question of temperature rather than of quality: Gold is the warm one, Platinum the cool one. Both are honest answers and neither is the better tile.

In practice, Gold suits a scheme that already has warmth in it — cream or off-white tiling, brass or bronze fittings, warm timber — and it is the one Original Style single out for pairing with Jet Black. Platinum suits cooler company: white or grey tiling, chrome and nickel, and rooms where you are chiefly after brightness.

A metallic glaze photographs badly and the difference between the two is far clearer in the hand than on a screen. Order a cut sample of each and stand them against the tile you are actually using, in daylight and again under the lamps you use at night. Samples are free to collect from our Ascot showroom, or posted to you for the cost of postage.

Yes. Cut samples are free to collect from our Ascot showroom, or we can post one to you for the cost of postage. Seeing the glaze in your own light is the surest way to judge how it will sit against your paint, stone and metalwork.

As a guide, add around 10% to your measured area for cuts and breakages, and nearer 15% for a herringbone, diagonal or brick-bond layout. It is also worth keeping a few spare tiles from the same batch in case a repair is ever needed.