For the Rotas, work has always been a family affair, with a legacy of tile setting spanning four generations. Business owner Nick Rota was raised in deeply rooted Italian culture by his father, Edward Rota from Trieste. Prior to WWII Ed's father owned a terracotta pipe factory and also made terracotta roofing tiles. Their factory was nationalized by the communist Yugoslavian occupation of Trieste and their business was confiscated. So the family of Rotas immigrated to Canada when Nick's father, Edward was still a boy. In Ontario, Edward's father and older brothers started a business of manufacturing and installing terrazzo tile.

A generation later when Ed was already a family man, he moved to Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia following his elder brother Villi. Ed began working for him as a tile setter and soon after started his own tile setting business “Edward's Tiling” on his own, with display racks of tile choices in his home garage. Ed's daughter (Nick's younger sister) Sabrina watched the business thrive as a child, while their mother Vivian helped with invoices and business paperwork from home.
 

Nick laid his first grout line at just 8 years old alongside his father Ed and uncle Villi. Nick fondly remembers working with his dad and uncle Villi, as they tackled impressive projects like the Millbay Shopping Center and the Victoria Infinity building. Nick eventually took to offering tiling services as an independent contractor for over 17 years as of writing this, since 2007. Carrying on this cherished tradition, Nick began training his own son Nicholas Junior as a tiling apprentice since he was a young teenager, spending their summers together working at a huge variety of tiling jobs.

 

Employment opportunities during Covid brought Nick Rota to the Sunshine Coast where he eventually incorporated his own business as Define Tile INC on March 16 2022. A year later his freshly graduated son joined him on the Sunshine Coast to work full time together in April 2023. Ironically it was exactly two years after incorporating, in March 2024, Nick and his new wife Sarah purchased the old Rug Runners in Gibsons and turned it into Define Tile and Flooring, a home improvement store. Then on July 1st 2024 with a baby daughter and another on the way, Nick's mother and sister moved to the Sunshine Coast to help out with the babies and to support the family business operations. Nick's sister Sabrina is in the office and on the sales floor and his mother comes to clean the store every week. Nick's brother-in-law, (Sabrina's fiancé) Shakael, is also a valued Define Tile and Flooring team member, working alongside Nicholas Junior as a tile setter in training.
 

For Nick, expanding from his dad and uncle's garage tile shops to owning and operating a full-service showroom is a dream come true. Nick's expertise spans from housing renovations to masterful installations in landmark projects like the BC Ferries Atrium building. But his heart lies in uplifting spaces for families with high-quality work that shines through every project, big or small.