Tile Trends for 2016

With the new year behind us, we’ve began planning and prepping our home for its next year of huge renovations. If you’ve been following my blog for some time now, you’ll know that we’ve been tackling our home improvements room by room. Whilst this is great for minimising dust and allows us to live freely without the whole house resembling a builders site, it does have its negatives. Things like ongoing electrical work mean we need constant access to the floorboards in almost every room. New installations (such as the electric shower) mean feeding new cables across the house and lifting up multiple floorboards. Since we’re tackling the electrics and plumbing room by room too, it means we can’t lay proper flooring. I love the look of exposed floorboards, but it isn’t always a very practical  solution to many rooms throughout the house.

With two mucky pups, tiles are a great option; they’re easy to clean, really durable, won’t harbour flea infestations (always a constant struggle with carpets, ugh!) and are really one of the best flooring options out there. We might be many months (or even years!) away from being able to tile a floor, but I still love having a look online and envisioning what I might do with each room. At the moment I’m particularly loving wood-effect tiles. Unlike floorboards, these are waterproof and make a great solution for bathrooms that desire that wood floor finish (unlike our floorboards that need re-waxing every few months)! They can be laid in so many different ways to give you the effect you desire. Just how fabulous do these ones look laid in the formation below? These could literally work in any room throughout the house.

Tiles aren’t just for the floor though! We’ve recently tiled our new shower enclosure and we’re also currently looking at tile options for a decorative hearth in the smallest bedroom. Since it’s a going to be fitted with a non-working fireplace, we can literally pick any variation of tile. I’ve been oohing and aaahing over white marble, but traditionally there would have been patterned tiles here which sadly have been removed and I really love the idea of re-instating it with new modern patterned tiles too. Using mis-matched patchwork style tiles is a really quirky trend that’s coming increasingly more popular. Something like these would certainly make a statement..

Whilst I’m left debating options for tiles throughout our house, new tile trends are emerging as 2016 brings a whole new set of palette shades and styles for tiles. To find out what’s going to be hot over the next twelve months, I’ve teamed up with Tiles-Direct to bring you three trends that you’ll be seeing a lot more of over the next twelve months…

© Filter Forge – licence

2016 is going to be a big year for a aquatic shades in the bathroom. Look out for mosaic tiles in marine blue and greens to add a splash of colour to your shower walls. The soothing palette of the tiles will bring a relaxing costal vibe to your room, so don’t be surprised to find yourself planning future holidays after a visit.

Mosaic tiles can be quite tricky to fit DIY style, as ensuring each individual tile is level with the next takes a lot more care, time and precision than larger tiles. The key good mosaic tiling is all in a good application of the adhesive base – a trowel with a thinner notch like this one helps to ensure a level adhesive base, but it’s still a DIY job that takes some practise and getting used to. Don’t be too put off by this though, it’s completely possible (we fitted our own mosaic tiles here) and the outcome is so worth all that precision and hard work.

This year will see an increase in the maximum size of tile available, which is a good indicator that oversized tiles will continue to have a huge appeal in 2016. The larger surface area of these tiles helps to create the illusion of more space, which has made them very popular for kitchen floors and countertops. As there are less gaps between the tiles, they also require much less maintenance than their smaller cousins, so you won’t have to spend as much time cleaning them. Opt for a neutral colour to really exploit their depth building properties.

Oversized tiles are rather more difficult to install than smaller tiles, and can really test your DIY skills. When it comes to choosing an adhesive for these monsters, always go for a powdered adhesive over a ready-mixed option, like the Mapei Rapid-Set Adhesive. Ready-Mixed adhesives need contact with air to dry properly which can often fail in the centre of larger tiles, so make sure to pick a powdered adhesive to avoid this. Oversized tiles can however be much quicker to install as they require far much less cutting. We found this a huge benefit when tiling the bathroom.

© Ed Jones – licence

Geometric wall tiles have always been popular, but 2016 looks to be the year that they’ll take off in style. One of the main strengths of these tiles is their ability to create an instant feature, and will look right at home in almost any room of your house. Many designers are moving towards monochrome greys, blacks and whites for their projects, so look out for these striking colour schemes if you want to be on-trend this year.

These circle feature tiles from Tiles-Direct combine a simple circle pattern and a matt finish to create a striking product. Install them in a room with an otherwise neutral decor if you want to create a feature wall with a lot of personality.

Going with trends can be quite a daring option as you never know what’s here to stay or what’s going to quickly descend from the list. It perhaps isn’t for everyone – but if you dare to be bold and ahead of the trend, these tile options could make an awesome addition to your home decor this year. I’m personally really keen on patterns and geometrics, but I’m not quite ready for the vibrant aquatic colours just yet!

What tile trends are you lusting after this year?

*Collaborative Post