Modern bathroom ideas and tips: floor and wall tiles guide

The bathroom is undoubtedly the place where to take care of ourselves and also to relax, so it's not surprising that a cozy and relaxing atmosphere is what everyone tries to recreate in its own bathroom. Achieving this result could be the right reason to rethink your bathroom space. A good idea is to immediately define the project design and then accordingly choose the size, color and surface of the new wall or floor tiles. Once this is done, lighting and all the furnishings and accessories will also follow the same style as harmoniously as possible.

However, more often than not one has to make a virtue of necessity! In case of a partial renovation - maybe you are forced to maintain the original sanitary ware and their position in the room or to reuse a piece of furniture - the colorful kaleidoscope of ceramic wall covering and floor tiles today on sale can still be a huge help to satisfy every taste and need.

Finding your way through the multitude of all possible proposals could easily turn into a discouraging challenge, so relying on an expert consultant always informed of new market trends can certainly be very useful.

But even when you go through a renovation on your own, there are few simple rules you can follow for a better and easier choice of your bathroom wall and floor tiles. Here are the main ones.

Choosing the right tiles for the modern bathroom

The kitchen but even more the bathroom are the two places in our homes that require very particular attention  to surfaces and construction materials, due to the greater humidity present and the need to frequently clean these surfaces. While the latest trends in interior design have seen a rise in hardwood, parquet or cork floors, the specific technical requirements of a more humid room such as the bathroom or the kitchen make tiles - and porcelain stoneware tiles in particular - always the recommended and preferred choice.

So if you are in the middle of a new bathroom construction or just thinking to give yours current one a new look, these are the essential features your new floor tiles must have:

• they must have a low value of water absorption: as obvious as it might sound, tiles have a degree of impermeability due to the porosity of the mixture they are made of. Not all tiles' types are suitable for use in a humid space or room;
• they must have a very good chemical resistance, as chemical products for cleaning will be inevitably used very often on bathroom tiles;
• they must be highly durable to guarantee resistance to wear and tear as they will experience much foot traffic but also possible impacts from falling objects;
• they must be easy to clean.

Foot traffic is of course the aspect that can be ignored when choosing the bathroom wall tiles. On the other hand, the abrasion resistance of glazed tiles is very important and must not be overlooked.

In the majority of bathrooms, the floor is in a dark colour while the wall follows with a lighter shade. This however is not a strict rule and nothing prevents you from resorting to a uniform color palette for both floor and wall tiles, especially if you prefer a more minimal style.

Modern bathroom tiles: how many types and which are they?

Classifying the types of tiles currently available on the market means necessarily listing at least the following: single-fired ceramic tiles - or simply ceramic - double-fired, white or red paste tiles, majolica (a creation of the highly skilled Italian artisans that closely resembles the azulejo, another very valuable ornament of the Portuguese and Spanish tradition), terracotta and, of course, porcelain stoneware tiles.

Single-fired and double-fired tiles can be installed in the bathroom but only on condition that they have a proven low water absorption. In any case, it is always better to reserve their use as wall covering and prefer only glazed double-fired tiles.

Even majolica tiles, due to their relatively high porosity, are not recommended as a flooring type but if you like the idea of using some as to decorate the walls of your bathroom, you can still do it preventing them from any contact with water.

From what has been said so far it becomes immediately easy to guess what's the best choice when it comes to tile a bathroom. The winner is porcelain stoneware and not by chance: it has great versatility of use, is a safe choice, is easy to clean and is highly durable.

Stoneware tiles support can be either clear or colored (full body porcelain stoneware) and is obtained by a considerable pressing force: this process is what gives life to extremely compact and resistant tiles with very low water absorption. The rapid and large diffusion of porcelain stoneware in the most assorted locations and areas of use, from private to commercial, from residential to large public buildings, is the direct and natural consequence of these ideal technical features.

The popularity and success of porcelain stoneware tiles are undoubtedly due to the infinite variations of their manufacturing processes that free both manufactures and interior designers of any style limit and let them free to experiment and set all the latest design trends. Thanks to the possibility of being glazed or unglazed, full body colored or clear and, above all, of undergoing subsequent more and more elaborate technical and aesthetic manufacturing processes (such as grinding to obtain perfect rectified tiles, sand polishing, gloss polishing, satin finishing, just to mention the most common ones) ceramic porcelain stoneware is indeed the unquestioned protagonist of most houses and so of their bathrooms.

Modern bathroom tiles: best size and colours

In the choice of bathroom tiles, the role played by the size and colors is crucial just as the tile quality itself. Based on style preferences and on the room furnishing and accessories, flooring and walls covering will follow precise rules, but the possibilities and combinations are almost infinite. Even the arrangement and laying pattern of the tiles may vary according to the personal taste or individual needs.

Preferred colors palette of the modern bathroom includes light and bright colors, especially if the room is small. Neutral colors such as beige or cream are among the most popular, but gray and black have also become very fashionable lately, especially in refined and elegant contexts.

In bathrooms with a modern touch it is very common to bring out the shower area resorting to a different tiles choice. This game of contrasts can be achieved in two different ways, often combined together: choosing for the wall tiles a different color from the flooring, sometimes even in a totally opposing and daring shade, or instead by simply choosing a different structure surface (such as 3D textures tiles) or size (smaller, bigger, a mosaic...) but in the same surrounding colour. This is a simple tip to highlight, for instance, a shower niche inside a wet room.

It is not at all to be overlooked the effectiveness of changing even just the laying pattern in a specific bathroom area, playing with the possible patterns available depending on the size of your tiles (small formats such as the brick offer many more solutions and are perfect for the modern bathroom).

Choosing the bathroom floor and wall tiles means taking the time to combine together all these elements in a nice match, without giving up one's personal taste or initial project because of the actual needs of space and room layout or the need to adapt to existing pipes or fixtures.

More than anything else: it is important to always rely on professionals in the sector, in order not to run the risk of unpleasant inconveniences.