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Hey, we were recently discovered by María José García Bravo and Karina Peña Ureña, two very smart young South American expatas who have the temerity to start an online magazine both praising and critiquing the Catalan capital’s greenness. Yes BCN for all its noise making and politicizing sure needs an objective eye on what is really going on regarding the local medio ambiente. Enough with the cemento!

Issue 4 of MA KA Green BCN features our humble endeavor.

The web site/magazine can be found here.

The piece on us is here.

Gracias Senoritas del Sur!

I am always amazed at how beautiful rust is. The colors, the randomness… Nature trying to return metal to it’s basic form; iron oxide. Here’s a close up of a detail of a table right after we arrest its development with a few layers of varnish. Que chulo.

OK we just finished a table for some Barcelona transplants. The tiles are old. The rust is rockin’ (our friend mother nature took 6 weeks to get it right). And it’s asymmetrical! How crazy is that? We think it’s one of the best so far.

Our friend Catherine Hart has been doing a photo exploration of our barrio and she took a picture of the casa de las baldosas hydraulicas. Now that you know where we live come on by for a complimentary olive.

Just up the way in Manresa the Marti family has been making baldosas hidraulicas for generations and they still are. Here’s a lovely and slightly rough video off of YouTube that shows you just how much work work goes into these things. Ostras! How can you throw them away!

It’s in Catalan… but you’ll get the drift. “Been tee wheet deas” is 28 days… that’s how long they need to dry once they come out of the press.

So last summer we delivered some tile tables to a client in Madrid. We did a couple of things custom for them; the color and size… the base and frame was painted with a metallic super dark grey industrial paint and the size was bigger than anything we’d done before, 62 cm x 62 cm. They used them at a standard dining table height but we though they would make a great coffee table too. And we were right… they look great.

So how about a lovely antique tile to hang above that elegant plant stand? We’ll place any tile you’d like in one of these handmade wooden frames… they are specially made for us from a little shop just up the street. Drop us a note and we’ll tell you what is available. Prices are here.

So we like single tiles… we like them so much we thought we’d make a very elegant plant stand featuring them. Straight lines and classic proportions complement the flowing, organic curves of the modernista tiles.

Real oxidation… aka “rust” seems to be a perfect fit for the dimensions. Modern, classic… we think they are really cool.

Check out our flicker page for an up close look at what we have to offer. Prices are here.

We received a nice note from a woman in Germany… who is yet another baldosa loca. She acquired her addiction in Sevilla where she lived for quite a few years. She has a blog… featuring a house filled with… baldosas… how familiar. Genießen!