3 stylish bathroom tile ideas
Tiles can have a huge impact on the look of your bathroom, with options to match every style. Whether you want something peaceful and neutral, or you want it to reflect your bolder side, there’s something for everyone.
Tiles can also help to create the illusion of space in a room, perfect if you want to make a small bathroom feel bigger, or make a larger room feel cosier. We’ve put together three bathroom tile ideas to get your interior design juices flowing. So, keep reading for some tile style inspiration!
For a texturally interesting bathroom, use geometric tiles, checkerboard layouts, or eye-catching shapes and layouts like hexagons and herringbone to make a striking visual impact.
It’s always a good idea to choose tiles to suit your space. Our favourite bathroom tile ideas for small bathrooms include light, large tiles which help spaces feel bigger, while smaller tiles or accent walls work well in larger spaces to define zones.
When choosing tiles for your bathroom, try playing with block colours, combining tiles with paint or wallpaper, or using contrasting tile colours to separate areas like showers.
Bold bathroom tile ideas
Tiles with bold patterns are a trend that never goes away. Geometric patterns are the most common, and these can cover everything from strong, straight lines to more floral motifs.
Bold doesn’t always equal boring though, and these tiles give you a chance to be creative and make a feature of your floor, something you can only do in your bathroom.
You can create striking geometric styles yourself with plain tiles. Checkerboard is really on-trend for both walls and floors in modern bathrooms. Simply alternate plain black and white tiles (or colours of your choosing), and you’ll have a bold, impactful bathroom without any effort. You can also arrange plain tiles into stripes, which is another popular choice.
If you want to go a little more outside of the box, you can switch up the layout of your tiles to add some geometric interest. A herringbone look can be achieved with long and thin rectangular tiles, and you can also lay these diagonally to get something that looks dynamic.
Want something a bit more interesting than square or rectangular tiles? All sorts of shapes are available, like hexagons, lozenges and diamonds, that slot together to create an interesting texture on your walls. You can even alternate the colours for a bold and eye-catching look.
Choose the right tiles for your space
Before choosing a tile, it’s a good idea to consider how it will fit into your bathroom space. The right tile can make a huge difference to the look and feel of your space.
Tile ideas for small bathrooms
If you have a small bathroom, light, glossy, large format tiles can help to open it up and make it feel bigger. Fewer grout lines make the walls look seamless and less cluttered, making your bathroom look more spacious, and a light colour in a glossy finish better reflects light around the room.
For smaller bathrooms, it’s also a good idea to use the same style tiles on the floor and the walls as this gives them the appearance of flowing into each other that creates the illusion of height.
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Larger bathroom tile ideas
If you have a larger bathroom, smaller tiles are great for creating an accent wall to break up a larger space and establish zones within the room. An on-trend smaller tile idea is Kit Kat tiling. This consists of tiles with a long and thin shape laid parallel to each other, either vertically or horizontally.
Another option is subway or metro tiling, which, as the name suggests, looks similar to the recognisable tiling found in subway stations. This pops when paired with black grout, turning your bathroom walls into an eye-catching feature.
Bathroom tile ideas with block colours
Once you’ve found a tile you like, this doesn’t mean you have to completely cover your walls with it. Tiling certain areas of your wall can help break up the space and create zones in your bathroom. If you’re looking to create a wet room, a great way to separate the shower from the rest of the room is by tiling it in a different colour. This then creates a visual border between each area.
Tiling the bottom half of your room and leaving the top half painted in a plain colour or covered in a sparsely patterned wallpaper can help make a smaller space feel more open. This is a great opportunity to use smaller tiles, as completely covering a limited space with small tiles can make it feel closed-in and claustrophobic, so you’ll want to leave some spots tile-free.
There are loads of tiling options out there to create any sort of bathroom aesthetic that you want. Larger, neutral tiles give the impression of a brighter, more open space, and smaller or boldly patterned tiles are great for adding points of interest in a larger bathroom to draw the eye to certain spots or break up the space.
If you fancy creating something more textually interesting, try experimenting with shapes and colours too. Once you’ve chosen your tiles, you’ll need to install them.
But before you call in the professionals, why not try it yourself? Check out our tiling how-to guides for simple step-by-step instructions and videos that you can follow.
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