Kitchen floor tiles - real terracotta or porcelain terracotta imitation?

[DaisytheStrange]

I can't decide between real terracotta or porcelain terracotta lookalike floor tiles for my kitchen. I love the look of real terracotta, but have been told it's difficult to fit and maintain.

A porcelain imitation terracotta would probably be more practical, but would they look too fake - i.e obvious pixelated 'print' effect, obvious unnatural 'repeat' effect ?

Any personal experiences and can anyone recommend a decent tile, which isn't too £££? Thanks

We have real terracotta - reclaimed and installed by the previous owners. It looks lovely but we find it a real pain to keep up. If you drop any kind of juice or liquid on it, it marks really quickly.

We used to have ceramic tiles which looked like unpolished granite/stone. They were fab and so easy to look after and keep clean. People always commented on them too - thinking they were the real thing.

If you can get the same effect with a ceramic tile I would - you don't have the palaver of fitting them and sealing them, etc. I imagine there are some very good ones available these days.

My neighbour recently replaced her hers with a ceramic look a like because the cleaning and sealing was such a PITA on the real thing.

Terracotta tiles are very porous so stain unless highly sealed. They were originally put straight down on a dirt floor so they would be needed to breathe but this is not a requirement today and we no longer put up with stains. I would use modern lookalike ones.

I have used lookalike limestone in a variety of sizes in my hall, kitchen, laundry and cloakroom and not a single person has guessed it is not real limestone. Some of the modern tiles are superb and do not need sealing to keep them in good condition.

Marlborough tiles have a lovely range of porcelain stone/terracotta effect. "English Pammets" or something. IIRC they work out about £35 per square metre. I looked at some samples and they were lovely. Better quality ones have randomised patterns/textures in the pack.

Porcelain is different to "ceramic", it has the colour all the way through. Ceramic will chip and show grey underneath, I think the cheaper printed-pattern ones are normally ceramic.

I looked at hundreds of terracotta tiles, a couple of years back we were extending and trying to match the previous owner's kitchen flooring. We ended up with very cheap (printed/repetetive like you say) ones as it was just the utility room, but the Marlborough were a close runner.

Thanks for your replies - all very helpful. I think I will go for the porcelain lookalike option, rather than the real thing.

@RaisingSteam - thanks for telling me about Marlborough tiles - have checked their website and I think their porcelain tiles may be just what I'm looking for