Hello and welcome to My Friend’s House Greatest Hits II – our look back, for the second time, to posts from our archive. We’ll be doing it all week before resuming normal service. I picked today’s post because I was feeling nostalgic about an old holiday and because it struck me how long the patterned floor fixation has been happening for… 

This week your roving reporter posts from Istanbul, the only city in the world to inhabit two continents. Its footing on Asia and Europe gives the place a pretty unique feel – somewhere in between tidy Paris and manic Beirut with a bit of Berlin thrown in – and it seemed very design-conscious. But before we talk shops, please witness why I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the ground  in various cafes and shops and even on the pavements.

So, how to get such tiling into my already-re-floored house. My first thought went to my grey – but very finished – kitchen. A perfect combo, but not to be. Then, in a flash my desperate eye went through the kitchen’s French doors to the nasty concrete paving in the garden. An area already under discussion in the house! Bingo. Here’s the German company I’d like to turn to for concrete tiles (they make to specifications). I say all of this before knowing a price tag. This story could yet end in decking.

Read more about shopping in Istanbul here.