The kitchen is the heart of the home, and the tiles in your kitchen can often be a main focal point so choosing just the right tiles is very important. In general we don’t update our kitchens all that often, and may well only retile when we replace our kitchen units, so you need to remember that you may be looking at the tiles you’re choosing for many years!
You could choose a single colour, a chequerboard pattern, a variety of colours or feature picture tiles. If you’re choosing picture tiles though, think carefully about it. If you’re planning on selling your house in the next few years then perhaps filling the kitchen with tiles featuring pigs, because you love them, is not the best idea. Indulge your passions in areas that aren’t permanent and keep the fixtures and fittings more neutral. However, if you’re decorating purely for your own enjoyment and any future residents are not relevant, then use your imagination and create something unique that reflects your own personality. Just make sure you create something you know you can live with for several years to come!
There is such a huge array of kitchen wall tiles that it can be a bit daunting. There are so many different materials, sizes and shapes and a rainbow of colour choices. Look for inspiration everywhere. It can sometimes be tricky when you’re looking at a single tile in a shop to imagine it in your home. A good place to get ideas is in a kitchen showroom. They will have kitchen units set up on display, to give customers an idea of how the entire kitchen looks once it is installed, they’ll add props such as a kettle, a washing up bowl in the sink, and utensils on the countertop, but more importantly they will have tiled this mock-up kitchen. These displays are made to sell kitchens, so you can expect that they will have employed experts to choose the perfect tiles for each kitchen. You can also save time and search the Internet for pictures of tiled kitchens.
Many places will sell you a single tile so you can take home a few and see how they look in your home. This gives you a better idea of the size in relation to your own walls, and how the colour and texture looks under your own lighting conditions. Tiles can often look darker at home when they’re not under the bright artificial shop lighting.
It’s always better to choose your tiles after you’ve chosen your kitchen units so you can choose tiles that go well with the colour and finish of your units.
When we think of kitchen tiles, most of us will immediately think of ceramic tiles, but there are so many other options. Porcelain tiles will cost a little more than ceramic but are water resistant and incredibly durable, so if you want a tile that won’t wear and will last a long time, then this is a good choice. For sheer beauty there are a range of fabulous natural tiles such as granite, natural stone, limestone or slate. Or for that feeling of opulence you could choose marble.
As well as a wide range of styles and colours etc, tiles come in a very wide price range and even on a budget you can get some fantastic looking wall tiles these days. I’ve also seen some nice kitchens where they have used cheap plain white tiles but added a pricier feature tile, such as a ceramic tile, among them. I’ve seen this done with the addition of a few reclaimed vintage tiles too. You can often pick up a few of these fairly cheaply as generally people want them in larger quantities, but used as part of a larger project where the majority of the tiles are new, it can really look good for a small outlay.
You can buy transfers to add to plain tiles, but these aren’t really recommended as they can discolour with age and are incredibly tricky to remove. Spending a little extra on a few feature tiles, or just sticking with the plain ones is a better idea.
Working out how many tiles you will need for your project can be tricky, you don’t want to buy too many as its wasted money, but you don’t want to risk buying too few, running out then finding there’s no more in stock. Work out how many tiles you need for each wall. Measure the wall, floor to ceiling and measure your chosen tile and work out how many tiles you need to fit from floor to ceiling once. Round up if it’s a part tile. Then work this out for the width or the wall. Multiplying these two numbers will give you the total for that wall. You’ll need to subtract for doors and windows etc. A good rule of thumb is to buy 5% more tiles than you need to allow for breakages when you’re cutting them etc. It’s useful to have a few spares anyway in case one should crack in the future for example. Don’t forget though that tiles do differ in size and shape, so if you change your mind about the tiles you’re going to use, then you’ll probably need to recalculate the number of tiles you’ll need.
Once you’ve chosen your tiles, you may want to get the professionals in to do your tiling, but it’s not really too tricky a job, and if you take your time you can achieve the same results and also save yourself some money. There are loads of guides online that will give you step by step information on how to tile a wall correctly.
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