Tiling Ideas for Bathrooms and More
Tiling ideas come from all kinds of sources – friends’ homes, pictures, quilts, fabric patterns, store displays, magazines, books, TV shows, and web sites. Nature even. Your job is to combine your creative tiling ideas with the practicalities of safety, durability and the availability of suitable tile for your location and purpose.
Subway tile (rectangular)
Very popular nowadays, this early 20th century style has made a big comeback. It was originally used in subways as an easy to keep clean and almost indestructibe wall surface, and it can serve the same purpose in kitchens and baths today. With rectangular tiles, often 3″ x 6″, laid in a running bond brick pattern, the style is slightly more linear than you can get with square tiles, but doesn’t have the excessive number of grout lines that the long thin glass or stone tiles do.
Variations:
many colors as well as white (pale green is especially popular)
grout colors to blend in or stand out
sizes from 1″ x 2″ to larger than standard, including liner tiles as borders or horizontal stripes
set vertically instead of horizontally.
If you want a truly stunning but labor-intensive effect, use small rectangular tiles horizontally or vertically to form “flame” patterns as used in bargello or florentine style needlepoint (picture).
The rectangular shape can also be used in other traditional brick patterns as well as running bond – any brick pattern will work such as herringbone or flemish bond, although you’ll need to do some cutting to get half tiles.
Square tiles
These are a standard shape but they can be found in many sizes from less than 1″ across to over 12″, smooth or textured, glossy to matt, all colors including metallic, or transparent or translucent glass.
Setting patterns include, as well as the normal square-by-square: running brick pattern, diagonal (“on point”), large and small tiles combined, square and liner (long and thin) tiles combined.
Round tiles
These are usually mosaic-size (2″ or smaller), otherwise the pattern would include a lot of grout. Gives a pebbly effect and can look great in glass tile, particularly.
Mosaic Tiles
Small tiles, usually bought already set onto a 12″ square backing sheet for easy setting. They can be square, rectangular, round, oval, or hexagonal. Get them in all one color, stripes, random patterns, even design your own random color blends on a website and get the tiles shipped to you. The small tile size means lots of grout lines, which is good for grip (especially on a bathroom floor or shower pan) but can mean lots of cleaning.
Glass tiles
Very fashionable at the moment, glass tiles are beautiful but more finicky to set than regular ceramic tiles. They are often transparent or translucent, which means you can see the setting mortar behind them, along with any gaps or discoloration in it! White mortar is normally required, so as not to change the glass color.
Stone tiles
Stone tiles come in many finishes, from polished through honed (matte) to tubmled, with rough edges and surfaces. The colors are often variable, and the edges may be uneven, requiring wider grout lines; stone tiles may also require sealing, like countertops, if tey will be exposed to food splatters etc. Tumbled stone tiles may collect dirt in their crevices if used on a backsplash behind a range, for example, so be cautious about where you use them.
Tiling ideas can be used in many areas of your home, but the bathroom and kitchen are the most popular.
Bathroom Tile Designs: 7 Ways to Add Style and Save $$
It’s very easy to make your bathroom tile designs much more stylish than a field of plain square tiles, by adding special colors, shapes, or patterns of tiles. I’ll show you 7 ways to add pizazz to your design without pushing the cost through the roof.
1. Add color bands or panels
Instead of tiling a wall or shower surround in the same color of tile all over, you can break up the expanse of single color tile and create interest by using one or more different tile colors of the same type and size. The way you use the colors to make patterns, and the colors you pick, will affect how the pattern looks: a checkerboard of high contrast colors will wake you up and energize you, while a subtle stripe of similar colors will be more soothing.
2. Add a liner stripe
“Liner” or border tiles are long thin tiles which form a stripe or border when used with field tiles. While liners are more expensive, you don’t have to use many of them to get the effect you’re after. You could create a bordered panel, add a stripe round the edge of your tiled area, or include just one stripe at wasit or eye level. Other good uses are as borders round windows, doors or fixtures. Another way to get a narrow stripe is to use the long narrow glass tiles which are in fashion at the moment. These are sometimes called “mtchstick” tiles and they come on a mesh backing by the square foot, like mosaic tiles. You can easily buy a few square feet and cut the tiles off the backing to use them as stripes.
3. Use a different layout
The most basic layout for tile is a plain, lined-up horizontal column / vertical row design. Without even changing your tile colors you can add interest by changing the layout: perhaps use a brick-style “running bond” (this works with square tiles as well as subway tiles), or set a panel of tiles “on point”. You can get much more complex if you want to – try adapting one of the many quilt block designs – but you may find that the more complex your design, the more important it is to feature the complex part as a panel surrounded by a simple layout.
4. Use different grout
Grout that is the same color as your tiles will make the joint lines less visible, and the tiles themselves and their color(s) will take over as the main design element. Contrasting grout lines make the tile layout itself “pop out” so if you’re using special or complex layouts as part of your design, an appropriate grout color is important to make them visible. If you have a really complex layout, a mild contrst may be a good choice so that the layout reads, but is not overwhelming visually. Grout line widths can also be adjusted to get different effects.
5. Use different shaped tile
Not all tiles are square! Rectangular tiles of different proportinons are readily available, from the currently-popular subway tiles to long, skinny glass tiles called matchsticks. There are many other shapes too: octagons and hexagons, circles, triangles, petals, flowers and leaves, pebbles, ogees, even hearts! Mosaics are currently very popular and can consist of shapes other than squares, too.
6. Add a feature panel
Painted tiles are often expensive, but you can still feature them without breaking the bank. A painted panel or set of painted tiles surrounded by one or more borders makes a great feature on the back of a shower or tub surround, or anywhere else where you have a large expanse of tile. Individual painted tiles can also be scattered through a field of plain tile.
7. Use patterned tile
Tile with printed patterns evokes some decorative periods we may want to forget (though even the seventies are starting to come back into fashion), but it’s also typical of specific styles from many areas of the world. An entire bathroom done in moorish patterned tiles might feel a bit overwhelming to you, though to someone else it might feel wonderful – but you can always feature patterned tiles in a panel or limited area, and surround with borders and plain tile.
As you can see, there are many, many ways to customize and personalize your tilework with different bathroom tile designs. Don’t settle for something boring when you can have “The Unusual” so easily.
Bathroom Tile Design Ideas
The bathroom and tile design go together like… hmmm…. rhubarb and custard? Maybe even better than that! Seriously though, the beauty of tile and its tough, waterproof surface make it the perfect material for bathroom walls and floors, especially in wet areas.
Functionally, there are many things to take into account. When choosing tiles, make sure the tile you pick is suitable for the area you plan to use it – waterproof enough for the bath or shower, and textured and tough enough for the floor.
Here are some pictures of tile use in bathrooms to help you come up with your own bathroom tile design ideas.
Large wall tiles broken up with narrow contrast stripes behind a white vessel sink
The large pale mottled/marbled effect tiles have a quiet, soothing effect, while the contrast stripes are made up of multiple small stone tiles in different colors, and break up the expanse to a more human scale.
Pale blue/grey/silver mosaic tiles behind a white vessel sink
The subtle damask-type pattern in these pale blue-grey tiles sweeps over all the bathroom walls. It gives the walls lots of interest while not being obtrusive, and makes a great background for the natural wood, metal and stone finishes.
Shades of black, grey, white and silver mosaic tiles
This is quite a busy mosaic tile pattern. It might make a good shower or bathtub surround for a morning-use bathroom when you want to be woken up! Alternatively, panels of this pattern surrounded by white would pop out and make a statement without being overwhelming.
Large pale diagonal tiles with narrow striped accent
These are the same pale marbled tiles in the first picture above, with the same small rectangular stone accent tiles, but here the large tiles are set on the diagonal. The swoopy towel ring makes a nice contrast with the straight lines of the tiles.