Tag Archives: Miami

Cuban Floor?

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As we were discussing what to buy and what we wanted to accomplish with the apartment… we both agreed that we wanted to pay homage to the era of the 30’s and 40’s.  We wanted the apartment to be glamorous and to have a sense of style, without  looking like a REGENCY Style Showroom in Los Angeles or a room on the set of “Keeping Up with The Kardashians”.

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We wanted to do a combo of what Jim and I are.  He is elegant and classic.  I am more casual and lazy.  Jim wears a blazer to the movies.  He likes to eat out and order three courses.  I wear flip flops everywhere.  I enjoy sitting at the bar and ordering appetizers or sitting on the floor of the living room and eating ribs while I watch HGTV.  We wanted that to be represented in the colors, the finishes, the style of the fixtures and lighting.  We wanted the unit to talk of elegance and style while having a bit of fun with it.

The dark sleek ebony and grey lines of the main room’s flooring was easily matched up with the classic lines of white subway tiles and the white porcelain vanity and toilet we picked out.  The light fixtures were also reminiscent of a time past and an era gone by.  We wanted you to know you were in a historic building.  It would have been foolish to place all modern fixtures in the unit after you had just walked through our salmon and black art deco lobby.

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We also wanted to show homage to Miami.  The beach… the sand… the latin food… the cuban coffee.

One day, I decided to go to see an indy film.   This is nearly impossible in Miami.  But I found a small theatre playing a french film, I wanted to see.  I took the three buses it takes to get to the Little Havana movie theatre.  The MDC’s Tower Theater is one of Miami’s oldest cultural landmarks. When it opened in December of 1926, it was the finest state-of-the-art theater in the South.  The experience was one of a kinda… as across the street there was a little bar/gallery called Cuba Ocho, specializing in cuban art of the previous century.

The movie was great. The two scotches I drank there were even better.  But something caught my attention, both places had the same type of flooring.   It was the same flooring my Abuelita Gata had in her apartment right in the middle of San Jose.  They were not in the yellow and gray tones she had, but they were similar.  Heavy and opaque with a certain charm that was very 40’s but more of a hispanic take on the medium.

 

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MDC’s Tower Theater
1508 S.W. 8th Street
Miami, Florida 33135
305.643.8706
http://www.towertheatermiami.com

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Cuba Ocho
1465 SW 8th St #106
Miami, FL 33135
305.285.5880
http://www.cubaocho.com

I started to look these things up…

 

I found mexican tile and some morrocan tile.  But I really didn’t hit upon it until a friend told me: “No chico, eso son Cuban Tiles!”  Yes, that is how they appear on the internet.  I also found them as Granada Tiles, and Spanish Tiles.  But if you ask anyone in Miami… especially a cuban… these are cuban tiles.

Needless to say they are not “cuban”.  They are based on a very spanish style floor covering used to this date in most regions of Spain, including Granada.  It makes sense that in Latin America we would emulate the styles and bring our own flair to it.

It also makes sense that these tiles were used in Cuba, and in Costa Rica.  Cuba is hot… very hot.  But it is also in the Caribbean and it suffers from great rain storms and hurricanes.  Costa Rica, or at least San Jose is not as warm, but it is in the middle of a rain forest and it gets rainfall all year long.

These floors are perfect for this weather. You see I thought these floors were simply thick ceramic tiles that had a hand or stencil painted flowery design on them.  Nope.  It is incredible how much work these tiles require.  And the why of it… is absolutely brilliant… even if the foors are dull.

I actually found a dealer and manufacturer here in the heart, well the liver, of Miami.

 
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They actually make small orders and about 20 designs here, in this tiny little storage space.  They sell them at $5 a piece and they are gorgeous.  You can also ask them to make one of their designs with any custom color you want… but get this.  They are made in Granada… but not Spain.  Granada, Nicaragua.  Yes… Cuban tiles are NICAS!  Viva Leon!

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These floors are made with powder dyed cement (not the concrete we see in sidewalks) but a finer, more mousse looking version of this.  As many as 3, 4, 5, 7 different tones are carefully poured into mold that looks more like a cookie cutter than a mold.  These set quickly and are laid out to dry before they are fired up in a kiln.  Now here is the kicker. The colors go right through the whole tile.  Why? Because these floors are meant to be waxed and polished and if the buffing of the wax were to take off the top layer or enamel you’d have a very ugly floor.

We did use these floors on our project this time.  The lead time on this was over 3 months… maybe next time.  But I am in love.

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Our Very First Property: The Rendale

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We got this apartment on a whim.  We wanted to get a place to come see my friends in Miami without having to sleep on a couch or bother someone… hopefully, this will be the case soon.

But after having gotten this apartment and the nightmare it meant… I think we both realized that we really just want a nice cozy space to crash, a place that is walking distance from the beach.  In an up and coming neighborhood… close to Mamma.  But far away from the crowds of SoBe and Lincoln Road during a Music Fest or Raver Expo.

We got just that.

Now comes the crazy part.  The unit was crap.  I mean seriously crap.  We bought it site unseen.  Other than pics on the Internet and some vague idea of where it was.  I remember looking up the Rooney Plaza and the Fountain Bleau and saying: “Isn’t that the ghetto of Miami Beach?”.

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Mainroom of THE RENDALE

Mainroom of THE RENDALE

The walls were painted yellow.  A creamy beighish yellow with these tan or cappuccino colored accents on all the beams in the room.  The floors were white with the most enormous grout lines… dark brown.  I actually think they were trying to save on tile by having a 1/4 inch thick grout lines.

Please check out the texture on the walls and the sexy flooring

Please check out the texture on the walls and the sexy flooring

The ceiling had some texture, the walls has some damage, and the electric plugs had been painted over so many times you could not see the phone jack.  The kitchen cabinets were obviously from the whole building reno done in 82 where they bought standard melamine cabinets and but a sexy soap stone on top.  It was a pullman kitchen w NYC style appliances… 24 inches all around.

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I mean it was fine.  It had been rented beforehand and there are several units that rent in the building with no more appeal than ours.  BUT… OMG, the bathroom.

So, here’s the thing.

Bathrooms are very hard to renovate.  They take time, patience, money… and vision.  But the idea of how to fix this bathroom in the reno of 82 shows why communism does not work.  Man is simply a slave to the law of “Minimum Effort”.

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The original cast iron tub from 1942 was still there.  The original Black and White tile that surrounded the bathroom shower and walls was still there.  They were old and worn.  Solution: Paint Right over them with White Oil Based Paint… Over and over and over again.  There were parts of the time where the paint was so thick… it actually ate away at corners.

Before pics of THE RENDALE

The sink had been replaced, with a 80’s style Vanity Cabinet… the toilet had not.  The flooring was a smaller version of the 12 x12 white tiles, known to most Miami populous as “Hialeah Tiles”.  Why? NPI.  I am imagining it has to do with the fact that there are dozens and dozens of discount tile places in Hialeah and they sell this Florida Room style tile in droves.

To make the final analysis on the unit… we noticed a giants beam looking thing go across the whole with of the unit.  Was it structural? Is it hollow?  Does it really need to stay there?  And why oh why are the cabinets 12 below it.

In the 80’s we all loved to collect things, and what we most collected was dust.  I mean come on… who did not have one of those mass produced houses in Calusa that had those extra storage spaces above the kitchen cabinets.  They were there to show your eclectic style.  They were breathing grounds for baskets, and silk plants, and the Fancy Pots… I even knew someone who had a porcelain cat that looked like it was resting there all day long.

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The very first step in doing this project.  DREAM.  I would literally spend days and nights imagining the unit all done and renovated with a great vintage sectional and books in built in shelves and a large reading chair… I imagined my sexy bathroom with the shower curtain I had bought, even before we closed.  Ummm, yeah at West Elm for $29.

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All this… paying no attention to budget or the fact that the unit is officially 297 square feet.  Oh yeah did I mention the studio’s main room is 12 x 14, including the pullman kitchen?!  Dream, Memo… Dream.

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