Splash out in bold style with tiles
Bring your travels home with exotic, patterned designs,
HOLIDAYS aren’t only for putting your feet up. Seeing new places and absorbing different cultures gives us ideas for our homes, although of course not everything translates.
Trailing bougainvillea looks prettiest against sunny white walls, and shutters are best left to charming French villas, but tiles we can work with.
And there’s plenty of inspiration only a short flight away. In Lisbon and Porto, houses are covered with the country’s glazed Azulejo designs, from glossy turquoise bricks to ornate yellow flourishes and bucolic scenes on blue and white squares.
While Marrakech is a wonder of patchwork inspiration, with its cool riad courtyards filled with lush plants and patterned floors. Even in our more muted light, it’s a look we can adopt.
Robert Whitaker, creative director of Claybrook, set up by ex-Fired Earth employees, says we are increasingly aware of worldwide design styles.
‘People try to create a feel of places they’ve been to,’ he says. Sites such as Instagram and Pinterest have also opened up the world to armchair travellers.
Claybrook’s tiles are sourced from far and wide. Uffizi, a range of porcelain tiles in subtle greys, was inspired by a visit to Florence.
The Raku collection, named after the traditional Japanese pottery, has a pleasingly gy crackled finish reminiscent t of handmade hand says ceramics.
Our climate, says Whitaker, particularly culf lends itself to a green, blue e and white palette. Claybrook’s Cannes tiles are popular in the green Chloe and Esme styles (£ 13.45 each, clay brook studio. While ile the glass Byzantine tine Emerald mosaic tiles ( pictured right) ) are a gorgeous shade (£12.26 each).
Patterned tiles are a visual and sometimes costly commitment. You may not want to go the whole way, but they lend themselves to creating areas of interest, perhaps on one side of a kitchen island or breakfast bar, as a vibrant splashback or in sections of flooring contrasted with a plainer design.
‘A splash of pattern creates a dazzling visual effect,’ says Lee 5 Thornley, founder of tile company Bert & May. ‘It can be hard to visualise how tiles work together from a single one, so order four to eight samples, lay them out on the floor and play with different combinations.’ After decades of white marble, colour is creeping back into our tiling schemes, particularly in bathrooms. Fashion and interiors blogger Alex Stedman Stedm has used dark dar blue, star patterned pa Denim tiles ti from Ripples Bathrooms, B which set off glitzy brass fittings beautifully. But quieter pastel shades like blush pink are a still going strong, s perhaps because be they’re so versatile. vers Mandarin Stone’s Stone Gelato Rose Gloss Decorative D Collection pink tile is as tempting as marshmallow (£0.91 per tile). Bert & May’s pink octagon tile is enlivened by a white geometric pattern (£5.88, bertandmay.com). Brick or metro tiles, commonly used in train stations, pubs and most city bathrooms are stalwarts but are now being used differently. ‘For the past 15 years, brick tiles have been used to great effect. But now people are displaying them in a chevron or vertical pattern,’ says Whitaker. Laid vertically, they lead the eye upwards, so can make a small room appear taller.
We’re also embracing herringbone on both our walls and floors. ‘ Herringbone tiles are gaining prominence’, says Thornley. ‘But we’re seeing more contemporary twists on the pattern’.
BERT& May’s pink herringbone tile, inspired by the YSL garden in Marrakech, has the sort of textured finish that would look good inside or out (£1.74 per tile).
We still aspire to that seamless ‘indoor/outdoor’ look. Concrete or stone- effect porcelain work well outside because they’re easy to maintain and don’t stain. The bigger the tile, the better. ‘Large format tiles make spaces look bigger and are easier on the eye,’ says Lousia Morgan from Mandarin Stone.
Their Galway Grey porcelain is convincingly stone-like (£45.60 per sq m) and the Industry Lead or Cement tiles would give a contemporary finish (£26.40 per sq m).
So if you’re off somewhere exotic this summer, remember there’s always room for a tile in your hand luggage. When you get home, the effect could be transporting.