Small bathroom tile formats
The sizes in this collection run noticeably smaller than in a kitchen: alongside the common 12 by 24 there are large groups at 12 by 12, 6 by 6, 4 by 12, 3 by 12, 3 by 6 and 2 by 6.
Obstacles are the reason. A shower niche has four internal corners and a sill. A window reveal has three returns. A bathroom floor often has a fall to a drain. Small tile follows all of that with fewer cuts and fewer awkward slivers at the edges.
Mosaic in a bathroom
In a bathroom the format solves two problems at once: it follows curves and falls that a rigid tile cannot, and it gives a shower floor a surface broken up by grout lines.
It is also where the decorative work happens. A plain field on the walls with a mosaic in the niche or on the shower floor is the arrangement most bathrooms settle into, because it puts the interest exactly where the eye already goes.
Porcelain across floor, wall and shower
Porcelain is the largest material group here, and the reason is that a bathroom asks one material to do three jobs at once: a floor walked on wet, walls that get splashed, and a shower soaked daily. One fired body can go to all three places, which is why so many bathrooms are tiled in a single range throughout. What changes from surface to surface is the format and the finish, not the material.
Where the tile changes between surfaces, the change works best when it is obvious. A floor in a large format with the same range in mosaic on the shower floor reads as one scheme; two nearly identical tiles read as an accident.
Bathroom tile finishes and wet floors
Matte leads the finishes here, with polished and glossy close behind and a dedicated anti slip group after them. Those three are answering different surfaces in the same room.
Gloss on a wall returns light, which is worth a great deal in a room that is usually small and often has one small window. On a floor the same surface behaves differently when wet, which is why the anti slip products exist and why the finish is worth choosing per surface instead of per room.
White and pale bathroom tile
More of this range is white than any other color, with gray and beige behind it and nothing else close.
Light explains part of it: a small room with one window benefits from every surface returning what it gets. The rest is that a bathroom is read as a clean room and pale surfaces carry that reading. One consequence follows from it, which is that grout color matters far more on a white tile than on a dark one.
Marble, travertine and slate
Marble leads the natural stone here, with travertine behind it and a smaller group of slate. Glass sits alongside them as a different kind of material entirely, most of it in mosaic sheets for showers and niches. What the stone asks for is what it asks for anywhere, which the marble page sets out.
What decides it is which bathroom products are acidic, since limescale removers and some toilet cleaners are exactly the sort of thing a carbonate stone reacts to. Matching the cleaning products to the stone settles it, and it is a decision made once rather than managed.
Bathroom tile thickness
Most of the flat tile here sits around three eighths of an inch, with a thinner porcelain group around nine millimeters and thicker pieces where pavers and stone appear.
In a bathroom that figure has a consequence it does not have elsewhere. The floor level, the shower pan or former, the threshold at the door and the waste position all have to agree with each other, and a change of tile thickness moves one of them. It belongs in the conversation with whoever is building the room, before the tile is ordered.
Medallions and border tile
Alongside the plain field there are medallions, accent strips and patterned pieces. A bathroom floor is small enough that a centerd pattern reads as a feature instead of taking over, which is why medallions turn up here and rarely in a kitchen.
A medallion in a small bathroom floor, a border at dado height, a run of accent tile inside a niche: all three are ways of spending a small quantity of an expensive material where it will be seen.
Vanity tops and backsplash
Vanity tops and backsplash products are not in this range, because they are different products with their own pages. A vanity top is a cut piece of surface material; a backsplash is a specific strip behind a basin or a countertop.
For the kitchen equivalent of this page, kitchen tiles covers that room, and backsplash tiles covers the surface that both rooms share.
