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Star Tile & Stone and friends use ingenuity and teamwork to bring a dream to life

C.T. Cromer’s 3,800-sq.-ft. garage – before the installation

What do an-85 year old South Carolina food service magnate, stone fabricator, autobody shop, ultra-compact surface material manufacturer, floor grinding specialist and visionary team of tile installers have in common? They all worked together to bring a long-held dream to life. 

Master tiler Pavlo (aka Pasha) Starykov is an NTCA Member, CTI, ACT and Stone Forensics Certified Tile & Stone Inspector and Owner of Star Tile & Stone LLC in the Greenville, S.C., metro area. He brought together a team of professionals to create a 5’x7′, 72-piece company logo based on a family crest for the 3,800-sq.-ft. garage of Mr. C.T. Cromer, owner of Cromer Food Services, where six of his prize automobiles are housed. 

Starykov was impressed with Cromer, now 85, who began a food and snack vending company in his tiny home in Anderson, S.C., 70 years ago, and has seen it grow to more than 100 employees on a sprawling campus that is replete with a golf course, swimming pool and other amenities for his family and his employees to enjoy. 

The logo had five colors – including a bright blue and yellow, which was a challenge to source in desired materials. Starykov told Cromer, “Let me do my research.”

Starykov has done a lot of work with Dekton panels by Cosentino and thought this would be the perfect material for size and durability. But it would need to be fabricated – and it didn’t come in the colors required for the logo. 

The team used the Proxxon Rotary Tool to cut the perimeter of the logo surround.

Enter ingenuity, phase one 

Starykov turned to longtime friend John Rozell, of Rozell Stone Company LLC in Easley, S.C., who at 83 had a similar career trajectory as Cromer. Starykov considered him a top notch fabricator of Dekton, and Rozell had just acquired a new waterjet machine – a Park Industries Fusion 4045L, CNC-driven saw jet that has both saw and water jet cutting capabilities. This machine could make fast work of the Dekton in the sizes and shape needed for the crest. A sketch of the logo was loaded into the waterjet, and once the single panel of 0.8 cm Dekton was sourced from the Cosentino Center in Charlotte, N.C., the 72 pieces were cut using waterjet technology.

Rozell Stone Company LLC used its new waterjet machine to cut all 72 logo elements out of 0.8 cm Dekton – and A Plus Collision, Inc. auto body shop painted the Dekton with a premium two-part epoxy to achieve the colors needed for the logo.

Before fabrication commenced, Starykov was still stumped about the colors. There was nothing with those colors in larger sizes in the U.S., he said, and smaller size tiles wouldn’t create the seamless look desired. 

Enter ingenuity, phase two 

The team installs the logo.

What if…the Dekton was painted? Not a typical treatment by any means, but the garage was not subject to heavy traffic, either from foot traffic or vehicles. Starykov reasoned that if an epoxy paint was used, it would chemically bond to the Dekton surface for a durable coating of the color needed, and could be repainted on site should a scratch occur. 

Cromer had used A Plus Collision Inc., an auto body shop in Anderson, S.C., for 20 years to paint and upgrade his fleet of work vans. He met with them to determine if they had epoxy paint to match the logo’s bright blue and yellow hues. They did, and after Starykov tested the paint’s chemical bond and durability to the Dekton, they agreed to paint the pieces with the premium two-part epoxy.

Preparing the floor

But before this masterpiece could take shape, the subfloor needed attention. 

Starykov said, “The floor did not meet the ANSI A108.02 – 4 flatness requirement for large-format tile exceeding the maximum allowable variation 1/8″ in 10′ when measured from the high points in the surface.” In addition, the floor was treated with a curing compound that could be a bond breaker for a cementitious mortar, he added. And for a trifecta: the “24-hour relative humidity (RH) test that we performed using the Wagner Rapid RH L6 test probes indicated that some areas had an RH level of more than 95%.”

The substrate is leveled and prepared with grinding machines.

To correct this situation – and create the necessary flatness for the install that required the precise location and centering of the logo – Charlotte-based V & V Epoxy Solutions ground the surface with premium floor grinding and dust containment equipment. “This helped us eliminate the high spots in the surface and to remove the bond-breaking curing compound.” 

The floor then was treated with UZIN PE 360 Dispersion Primer, followed by the installation of the Revolutionary Shower Systems (RSS) DCM decoupling mat that provides load distribution, uncoupling, waterproofing, and vapor management, Starykov said. The team installed the RSS decoupling mat and tile with UZIN CX 30 high-performance mortar that meets or exceeds ANSI A118.15ET standard.

Priming the floor with UZIN PE 360 Dispersion Primer.
The Revolutionary Shower Systems DCM decoupling mat, installed.

Setting the tile 

The team checked for mortar coverage.

The installation team itself consisted of Starykov with Oleh Shutov and Ivan Manolaki, who set the floor with 24″ x 24″ glossy Daltile porcelain field tile and cut the contours to accept the logo, providing field movement joints per TCNA EJ171. 

Shutov is a former Ukrainian professional soccer player who – along with Starykov – played for the same club in Ukraine. He came to the U.S. with his wife and their 16-year old son in the spring of 2024 through the Uniting for Ukraine program that grants a humanitarian parole to the Ukrainian refugees of war. After their hometown of Mariupol was destroyed and occupied by the Russian army, Shutov joined the Ukraine Armed Forces in 2022 to defend his country. He was discharged in late 2023. He then joined his family in Poland, and shortly afterward immigrated to the U.S. to find their new life and home. 

Manolaki, a former Ukrainian college volleyball player, is the owner of Manolaki Tile & Stone Greenville, S.C. He had been one of the lead journeymen at the Miller Druck Specialty Contracting, Inc., in New York City before moving to South Carolina with his family. Starykov teams up with Manolaki’s outfit for larger projects, like this one. 

Installation of the Daltile 24″ x 24″ glossy porcelain field tile with UZIN CX 30 high-performance mortar.
The completed garage floor.

To install the porcelain, and scribe the logo, the team made a template of luan plywood on the floor and cut all the perimeters by hand using a Proxxon Rotary Tool, chosen because it exerts the least amount of vibration during cutting, Starykov said. All the seams were finished with MAPEI Mapesil Silicone Sealant in colors that perfectly matched the logo, and added the flexibility necessary to accommodate movement on the floor. 

This project took a little over a month in November and December 2024. Cromer “made our work experience as comfortable as possible,” Starykov said. “The garage space has a temperature control, his cleaners assisted in cleaning of the tile before and after grout, and all tile was delivered on site by Mr. Cromer’s company. We had a very great and welcoming atmosphere with a lot of respect and hospitality shown to us by Mr. Cromer, his relatives, and company workers.” 

The garage – and the brand new floors – were the site of a holiday party in December, and the client was ecstatic about the outcome.

l. to r.: Oleh Shutov, Ivan Manolaki and Pasha Starykov.

To see the installation unfold, check out this video!

Editorial Director and Senior Writer | [email protected] |  + posts

Lesley Goddin has been writing and journaling since her first diary at age 11. Her journey has taken her through a career in publishing and publicity, landing her the editor position of TileLetter and its special publications in 2006. Her goal is to educate, inspire, recognize and encourage those in the tile industry -- especially the tile and stone contractor.

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