7 Tips to Know Before You Choose Tiles for Your Place
Tiles are quite a popular option in modern home design, both for floors and walls. They provide an ideal floor alternative as they are convenient for high-traffic rooms such as the kitchen, bathroom, and living room. Besides being functional, they are also practical for cleaning and maintaining. And they are durable as well. However, when it comes to choosing the right tiles for floors and walls in distinct rooms of our home, we come to realize that it just sounds easy and simple, when in fact, it’s not. There are many things to take into consideration before choosing tiles in order not to make a mistake in picking the wrong material, type, or color of tiles. The first thing we need to think about is the style of our home – we should adapt to it and not go against it. Then, we should think about the rooms we’re changing or adding tiles to, the fact whether it’s for floors or walls as well as the suitable materials for each room. We also need to consider the colors, as they need to be by the furniture and other things in the room. Moreover, we shouldn’t forget about the grout and underlayment. Take a look at some important things to consider when choosing tiles.
1. Take the room into consideration
When we have figured out the style of our home, the next thing we should consider is the room where we plan to change or add tiles and whether we’re focusing on floors, walls, or both. These will be the determining factors in choosing the right tiles. There are a few basic tips to know here. For example, if you wish to make a room feel larger and brighter, you should go for a larger tile size in light shades. For a large room, you can opt for more sizes and colors, depending on the effect you want to achieve. Currently, popular color choices include off-white shades, warm grey, and cream.
2. Think about a suitable type of tiles
There are different types of tiles available and they are all used for distinct purposes and to achieve diverse effects. Just to make one thing clear – for a more cohesive look of a room, you can use the floor tiles on the walls as well, but you can’t use tiles vice versa as floor tiles are usually made of more sturdy and durable materials, ideal for high traffic areas where people walk and furniture is placed.
When it comes to tiles for walls, their main purpose is usually purely decorative, and technical parameters are not as important as with floors. Carefully chosen tiles for walls, in terms of sizes, colors and patterns can be quite effective. Manufacturers usually offer tiles with matching decorations you can choose from. For instance, one highly popular option is mosaic tiles, which are impressive with their abilities to add decoration, style, and shine to a room.
On the other hand, floor tiles are supposed to have some additional, protective features, besides being visually appealing. What everybody is looking for is a resilient floor that’s easy to maintain. For different rooms, you should opt for different abrasion resistance classes – the kitchen would require a high resistance class, while the living room not so much. Then, you can choose either glazed or unglazed tiles. Glazed have gained popularity due to their low absorbability and high bending resistance, among other things. On the other hand, unglazed tiles are a better option when it’s important to be resistant to different mechanical factors. As far as our safety is concerned, anti-slip tiles would be the best option.
3. Consider the appropriate size of tiles
As already briefly mentioned, the size of tiles matters. If you want to visually enlarge a room, you should go for larger tile sizes, both for floors and walls. This detail is known to add a lot to the visual feel of spaciousness we have about a room, even though it’s just a trick. A very useful trick, though. If you don’t need to make a room seem larger than it is, then the sky is the limit when it comes to choosing tile sizes and patterns.
4. Choose tile materials wisely
Tiles are made of different materials and not all of them are equally suitable for all rooms in our home. For example, wood-look tiles are a perfect option for a kitchen as well as a patio as they represent an imitation of the natural beauty of wood. You can opt for textured tiles for areas that might get wet, such as the patio. Both light and bold shades of wood are popular and have their advantages and disadvantages. When choosing, we should consider the tones in surrounding areas in our home.
5. Pick colors & patterns
Besides the types of tiles, the size, and the materials used, colors are also an important aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked. Color selection is essential for every room as we add a certain vibe to it with the color palette. So, for instance, when it comes to choosing colors for the kitchen, you can go either for warm or cool shades, depending on your preferences. It’s important to consider the color of kitchen units and other features before deciding on the tile color. For a warmer kitchen look, you should opt for beige, cream, and neutral shades, while for a cool look you should go for shades of blue and green.
6. Don’t forget about the grout
Grout is not just used to fill the tile seams – it is also used to improve the look of tiles. For example, dark grout in combination with light-colored tiles makes a room look stark. On the other hand, grout color that’s the same as tile color merges the tiles into one huge, compact area.
7. Avoid tile cutting
One thing we should avoid when laying mosaic tiles around our home is cutting them. Of course, sometimes it’s necessary and then it’s okay. When you have a lot of small tiles laid it just looks chaotic. By not cutting the tiles, you minimize your work and you maximize the visual appeal. It’s especially important to place full tiles in the prominent areas.