River rock tile combines the beauty and rustic elegance of a wilderness look with the convenience available only in tile. If you haven’t yet seen this material, let me explain. Imagine that you went wading in a river and collected a large number of smooth, round stones. They’ve been worn down by the action of eons worth of water until they’re just as highly polished as the stones that have been sent through a rock tumbler and are on sale in a rock shop. In other words, breathtaking. Now, pick through your stones until you find a lovely combination of contrasting colors, and arrange them in a random pattern reminiscent of the river itself. All that remains is to embed them in a base such as concrete and then cut them into tiles. The finished product would be gorgeous, but can you imagine what a lot of work it would be to make your own river rock tile the way I’ve described? It’s much better to buy it ready-made, and you can believe the quality will be higher too. The finished tile, for example, will be much smoother. It hurts to walk on a bed of river rock in bare feet because of the uneven surface, but you won’t have that problem with river rock tile at all. The surface is perfectly even, level, and smooth, making it a joy to walk on in bare feet. That’s because purchased tile uses a little bit different process  than I described above. It involves cutting each stone level first and then embedding it into a base. In this manufacturing process, the resulting tile is of a finer grade and each embedded rock stands out a little bit more. Here’s something else that’s very interesting about river rock tile. If you’re like me, you’re used to thinking of tile as a square shape, or possibly a rectangle. But because river rock tile is supposed to make you think of a stream out in the wilderness, you can purchase pieces of it that are curved and undulating. Assemble these together and you can configure your very own river rock tile river, wandering through your living room or outdoor living space. A creative application of this is to have the rest of your flooring be of some completely different material like wood – that way your river of river rock tile will really stand out and appear to be a river. For a more forested feel you could even replace the wood with dark green carpet. Perhaps the river of river rock tile can lead down a hallway to your master bedroom suite. If that’s too adventurous, how about using river rock tile in the bathroom so that you can have the visual sense, if not the feeling of water tumbling down around you as you shower?