Centura Glocal Porcelain Tiles

If you love the look of polished concrete but have no interest in actually pouring, grinding and sealing a real concrete floor, Centura Glocal is the range I steer people toward. It is porcelain built to read like true concrete, with that flat, softly clouded face and a natural, off-the-press finish. Centura grades the shade variation V2, which is a fancy way of saying each tile shifts a little in tone from the next. That subtle movement is exactly what keeps it from looking like a printed, stamped-out floor and gives it the honest, lived-in feel real concrete has.

There is a lot to work with here. The range runs 54 tiles across 17 colours, everything from the softer, paler concretes to deeper, moodier greys, with names like Chamois, Toffee, Ginger, Sugar, Nebula, Lumina, Clear and Ideal. It also comes in four sizes: 12 by 12, 12 by 24, 24 by 24, and the large 24 by 48. If you are covering an open floor and want that modern, barely-there grout look, go with the 24 by 48. The bigger the tile, the fewer the lines, and concrete always looks its best when it reads as one continuous surface rather than a grid.

Here is where Glocal earns its place. It is rated R10 for slip, so it is easy to live with on any floor that catches the odd splash, think kitchens, bathrooms, mudrooms and front entries. The body is frost resistant, which means you can carry the very same tile out to a covered porch, a balcony or the garage and not worry about it cracking when winter hits. It is rated for walls as well as floors, so if you want a feature wall that flows straight down into the floor with no change in material, you can. And because the edges are rectified, we can pull the grout joint in tight, around 2 to 3 mm, which is what gives you that clean, almost seamless finish people are after. If your project is chasing LEED points, it carries recycled content that can count toward your material credits.

One straight piece of advice, because I would rather you end up with the right floor than bring one back. R10 is perfect for everyday rooms, but it is not the tile for somewhere that is wet and barefoot all the time, like a pool deck or the inside of a shower. For those spots, ask us and we will put you on an R11 or R12 instead. Thickness, coverage per box and the grout shade we would pair with it shift a little depending on the size and colour you land on, so you will find those exact numbers on each tile's own page.

Honestly, the only real way to judge a concrete-look tile is to stand over it, because the tone and texture read completely differently in daylight than they do on a screen. Come put your hands on it. We are at 700 Dundas St E in Mississauga and 112 Saunders Rd in Barrie, and we both supply and install it right across Toronto, Mississauga and Barrie.