Bathroom Tile Designs that Steal the Show

In fact, not using designer tiles all over the place can emphasize their uniqueness and beauty.

Let's enjoy for a moment a couple of examples, before we get to using them in your bathroom design and layout.

Wall Tile Creations

A magnificent example is this matt black ceramic tile embedded with Swarovski crystals. A droplet design is glazed on the tile, creating a beautiful play of light when viewed from different angles.

You could of course use this tile on all your bathroom walls for a dramatic effect: Midnight black with starbursts of light caught in the crystals and glazing.

Or, use them in focal areas only as we will show you lower down on this page. In a small bathroom you could even use them on one wall only - pretty much as you would do with a mural - with no need to repeat them elsewhere.

To make them really stand out (pun intended), add dimension to the wall - either in the shower, above the vanity or as splash back for the bath.

Just take a minute and head on over to our Red Bathroom page. Take a look specifically at the images where we illustrate the addition of architectural/dimensional features to see if you can implement those in your bathroom design.

A large white wall tile gets the custom treatment with inlays. A stainless steel mosaic tile is inlaid into a charcoal tile, inlaid into the white tile. With water-jet precision-cutting a professional finish is achieved and the design possibilities are endless!

You can use this type of bathroom tile design as a broad accent strip, especially if you use them end-on-end, making a break away from the often used narrow off-the-shelf accent tile strips.

The area surrounding this feature tile can be finished with standard (and less expensive) tiles if you wish.

Luxury Underfoot

Floor tiles can also be customized with metallic inlays. Take it a step further and use different shades from a family of bathroom tiles and cut them into uneven strips to create bathroom tile designs uniquely yours.

When using these designer strips to create a border pattern in your bathroom, do make a drawing of your bathroom floor plan first. Do the drawing to scale! Scan and print a couple of copies and start playing around on paper.

Refer to our Bathroom Layouts page for printable graph paper and sample fixtures.

Don't be tempted to create a border around all the fixtures. Their placement is often (mostly) determined by plumbing/space requirements and not aesthetic considerations. Plus, a toilet base is not the easiest or most pleasing shape to work with either. Too many patterns on the floor will be distracting too, which is not the aim here.

Do let the pattern be interrupted (when passing through or behind a toilet, bidet or basin pedestal - the eye will follow the line through the "interruption" and complete the pattern.

With a smaller bathroom, you can simply follow the outer edges of the floor (where it meets the walls). This will draw the eye outwards and visually enlarge the floor space - a good idea especially where fixtures are off the floor. For example: wall mounted basins and toilet and a freestanding bath. Not a good idea where there is very little floor visible against the walls.

In a larger bathroom there is obviously more floor area to play with and you can also consider creating an island area with your unique bathroom tile designs.

You can also use floor tile patterns to lead the eye to focal areas: A designer bathroom vanity, beautiful bathtub or entrance to a shower.

You can be bold too! Use your small insets to create a large eye catching pattern.

Floor tile patterns using inlays can be (seemingly!) random too. Again, draw this out on paper first. In your "random" patterns, you can either:

• Be playful and cheeky and let the pattern go play hide and seek - not every bit of special treatment has to be in your face;
• Cluster them at a specific focal point;
• Scatter the little surprises more or less evenly to liven up an otherwise uninteresting floor area;
• Place them in a guiding pattern to lead the eye to areas that you want to showcase.

Tiles are an important bathroom design element and should serve more than just the practical purpose of cladding your bathroom floor and walls.

We hope the bathroom tile designs featured here will inspire you to get creative with some exciting bathroom tile ideas of your own!

Please refer to our Bathroom Tile page for many more Bathroom Tile Design Ideas.

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