At GAFF, we’re big into tiling. Whether it’s the floor of your tiny downstairs bathroom, a section of your kitchen wall or a way of zoning your open plan space, there’s so much to be gained by a clever tile choice. For so long, we’ve been sticking with subway tiles – plain, white with black or grey grouting – and if we wanted something fancier we gravitated towards Florentine style/Victorian tiles. But as Ireland gets more creative with tiling by the day, more and more style options are coming to the fore. We were majorly impressed by Vogue Williams’ bathroom tiles – she’s in nesting mode ahead of the arrival of her first born – and have been sussing out similar options online. Here we want to give you a little bit of tiling inspiration, should you be in need of an update. Our advice? Bulk your tiling projects together because the real cost is the labour, not the tiles themselves. So where possible, get your tiler to do as much as they can in the one session. What’s more, you don’t have to tile your walls – or floor – from floor to ceiling; you can tile a small portion of the wall to create an interesting feature. When it comes to bathrooms, if you can’t decide between paint and tiles, why not tile just the shower area and paint the rest? Or opt for a statement tiled floor and keep the rest pared back?
Here’s what we’re loving right now…
Let’s start with pink – a colour that will always have a place in our heart. This needn’t mean your bathroom is super feminine; pink is calming and sophisticated. This style is from besttile.ie at €2.30 per tile.
A new take on the subway tile is to opt for black tiles – and don’t assume that black means closed in; if we’ve learned anything from Queer Eye, black can have the opposite effect. This is cool, contemporary and matte bevelled finish laid in a herringbone pattern is super slick. These are from Tile Style.
For something very different, if you’re big into art and you want something more than a rinse and repeat pattern or shape, check out this creative tiling feature from Halo Tiles. We reckon this would work well in a larger bathroom, but that’s not to say you can’t go all out if you’re working with a smaller space. You just need to know, when it comes to a print as busy as this, that you won’t tire of it within a few months.
We also love this colour from Best Tiles – there are so many colour options. And what’s great about these is that you can lay them in all kinds of ways, dramatically changing the way they look.
This colour combination is amazing; it’s interesting enough to make a statement, but it’s committing to such a strong colour that the rest of your decor will be dictated by this. This would be perfect for a kitchen floor as well. Also from Best Tile.
For something really out there, but subtle enough at the same time – you have to really hone in on it for the detail, but far away it wouldn’t be a shock to the system – here’s something we found on the Pinterest page of Irish company Tile Style.
However, if you feel like playing it a bit safer, but you feel the white subway tile has been done to death, change it up with a gloss finish pastel coloured tile and, again, organise them in different ways to create entirely different looks.
The following guide from ‘A Beautiful Mess’ on Pinterest, should be of some help.
