Interiors: Tile Style
Latest Interiors updates the home with stunning tile styles from bold colours to designer and natural stone options
Colour and form
Design has caught up with wall and floor tiles this year. We absolutely adore Dominic Crinson’s beautiful, graphic wall and floor tile designs. Influenced by colours and cities from all over the world, his tiles will make your kitchen a real conversation piece (www.crinson.com – there are lovely wallpapers here, too).
Ceramic and glass mosaic tiles are back in style. Ceramic tiles are very versatile for walls and floors, and offer a greater choice of colour and finish. Unlike natural stone (where colour and texture may vary), ceramics offer uniform, clean lines – perfect for a contemporary look. For a more traditional finish, terracotta, encaustic and mosaic tiles are just right for period halls, bathrooms and conservatories.
To update wall tiles, retro prints, botanical and architectural designs with motifs and styles from the ’40s and ’50s and muted metallics (aged silver or bronze) work very well. Glass tiles in vibrant colours have a sleek, almost luminescent finish, and their reflective surface will add light to a space. Paler shades of blue and aqua glass work very well with steel or granite worktops.
Natural beauty
Natural materials like stone and slate remain a very strong trend. Beautiful, simple and sustainable, these materials have been used in homes and buildings for centuries. Limestone (a soft, sedimentary stone formed over millions of years from shells and bones) is a classic finish for period hallways.
Travertine has a more variegated appearance and is also available in a variety of forms, including polished, honed and tumbled. For a cool, glossy finish, marble – formed when extreme heat and pressure is applied to limestone – is the deluxe option – and all of these natural materials look equally fabulous on walls or floors. Slate is another hard-wearing, good value floor finish for kitchens and won’t show the dirt and wear as much as a paler tile.
Consider the different sizes of natural stone tiles and the effect. Smaller travertine tiles or mosaics with a rough, ‘tumbled’ texture give a blunt, clean finish to kitchen walls. Larger-sized marble, slate or limestone tiles are great for floors. You can add interest and a more contemporary look by finishing traditional stone tiles with a coloured grout – pale grey or biscuit for slate, mushroom or chocolate for limestone.
