Welcome back to another installment in my bathroom renovation – blimey, it’s taking longer than I expected: I thought we’d be done within 5 days but nooo. So far we’ve taken out the old bathroom and prepared the whole room for some new plumbing, tiles and fittings – we’ve come a long way since I shared those first horrid bathroom photos, I can tell you!
The next step was to install the pipework for the shower behind a false wall, so I’ve already shared this process with you last week. The tiling on the back wall of the bathroom needed to be done before we could install the pipes for the shower unit, so you’ve may have already seen a glimpse of the top quality tiling we’ve done but here’s a blog post all about it.
First of all, let me tell you that I took ageeees to choose my tiles so I really hope you’ll agree that I made an excellent choice! The room is really small, so the sensible thing to do would be all-white tiles to bounce the light around and make the room feel as big as possible. But when have I ever done the sensible thing, eh?
Nope, I wanted something bold, sleek and colourful so I hunted high and low for the right tiles. In fact, there was a period of about a month when all you would have seen on my Pinterest account was hotel-like bathroom designs and eccentric tile patterns. But all my plans for crazy coloured grout went out of the window when I found my dream tiles at Tile Trader.
These blue tiles were ideal for two reasons; firstly, they were suitable for both floors and shower walls – perfect for what I had in mind, and secondly, they were a rich denim blue colour. I didn’t want a primary-school blue, nor did I want navy, or any kind of coastal design. I’d done that in the bathroom of my previous home and was over it. I no longer wanted the ‘holiday home’ look – I was upping my game to hotel standard, haha!
So the shade of mid-blue was ideal but what made this tile even more perfect was the pattern. You can’t really see that the tiles are patterned from a distance but, up close, they have a subtle woven design that looks like fabric. A lot like denim jeans, actually. They’re not textured on the surface, it’s a smooth mid-sheen finish, but the fabric-like effect is gorgeous.
I used the Concept Azul tiles on the floor and up the back wall of the room, where the shower was fitted. I wanted a seamless run of tiles from the door and up the wall to the ceiling and I love how bold this looks in the deep blue colour. I decided against coloured grout for this tile; I much preferred the clean lines of a classic white grout and it tied these tiles in with the while tiles on the walls.
I wanted a contrasting colour either side of the blue tiles so that it really stood out, but a simple white tile wasn’t really what I had in mind. That said, any other colours seemed to detract from the strong blue effect. While I was ordering the Concept Azul Tiles a recommended product popped up on the Tile Trader website and there was the ideal white(ish) tile right there.
I decided on the Concept Blanco tile for the walls which, although it’s from the same range as the blue tiles, actually couldn’t be more different. These tiles were a massive 60cm x 20cm in shape, which created a fun oversized metro tile effect. I was initially intending to tile them in straight lines, but when my husband laid the tiles out in a brick-work pattern on the floor, I was sold.
These tiles don’t have a fabric print on the surface but do look textured. They have a very subtle stripe in off-white and dove-grey tones that’s barely noticeable when you’re looking at the overall effect of the room. But up close, you can see the stripe design and the pattern on each tile matches up perfectly, creating a continuous flow of stripes. The surface is a high-shine gloss so we’ve still achieve that effect of bouncing light around the walls and the room definitely does look bigger now.
I was in charge of grouting the tiles, so forgive the awful mess during the process. My husband did an excellent job with the tile adhesive – I gave it a go and can’t fathom how he gets the wiggly waves so perfect every time. Mine were a right mess. I hated grouting in the beginning because I couldn’t get it into the gaps, but once I perfected my smearing-on technique I started to quite enjoy it. I didn’t enjoy cleaning up afterwards though, soooo many smudges!
I think the effect of the blue and white tiles together is exactly what I was looking for; bold, colourful and something I’ve never seen on Pinterest before! The room has been transformed from a grotty bathroom into something really special and I can’t wait to share the finished photos with you once the bathroom suite has been plumbed in. Watch this space!
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
