If you can’t get to the Greek Islands, you can always surround yourself with their colors.

That’s the way Justyn Livingston thinks about her tiles, anyway.

The owner of Metolius Ridge Artisan Tile says that her custom work for clients is showing a break from the grays and browns of the past 10 to 15 years, and into heading into a new, colorful trend.

“In the 1980s and ‘90s, people were worried about the resale value of their homes, so they were afraid to do something they considered unsafe – and accessorized with color and soft things they could pull away,” she says. “Paint’s easy to change and so are window treatment and towels, but tile is expensive and more permanent.”

So if the trend now is toward color – so why not look to the Greek Islands?

“I love that ocean color – that light bright blue,” she says. “The challenge is to use it so it doesn’t look too glaring, so you can work with it over time.”

She’s developed a new palette based on that, for six-inch and eight-inch square tiles, to be used around a fireplace, as a backsplash or in a powder room.

“It could be wainscoting in the bath or in a hot tub,” she says. “It could be used in flooring for low traffic areas. It’s funny – in Italy the floors are worn over hundreds of years, and we love the patina, but when we do it here, we get kind of nervous about changes over time.”

She likes to mix the tiles and patterns up.

“When you go to Antigua or Guatemala or Oaxaca, you see that everywhere,” she says. “There are patterns on patterns on patterns, and I love that.”

But the Greek Islands – here’d that come from, if she’s never been there?

“I was exploring the idea of a bike vacation in Greece – and I looked up a bunch of photographs on Pinterest,” she says.

Of course. Where else?

For more information, go to http://metoliusridgeartisantile.com/

[slideshow id=1174]