How to choose bathroom tile without regretting it

Tile selection tends to happen on a screen, in a showroom, and under lighting that resembles none of the above. A few habits make the outcome much more predictable.

See it in the room, at the right size

Order full-size samples, not swatches, and leave them in the actual bathroom for several days. Look at them in morning light, in the evening with the lights on, and wet. Stone and matt porcelain in particular look substantially different wet.

Format changes the room more than colour

A large format with tight joints reads as a continuous surface, which makes a small room feel calmer and larger. A small format with more grout reads as texture and pattern. Neither is better; they do different jobs.

• Large format on walls: fewer joints, calmer, needs a flat substrate.
• Small format on shower floors: more joints means more grip where it matters.
• Plank formats: limit the offset to one third, never one half.

Finish, and the grip conversation

Polished tile in a wet area is a decision to make deliberately. Where a manufacturer publishes a tested slip figure we will pass it on; where they do not, we will say so rather than guess. What we can tell you from experience is that a smaller format with more grout joints gives more underfoot security than any surface texture on a large panel.

Grout is a design decision

Matching grout to tile makes the surface disappear into one plane. Contrasting grout turns the same tile into a grid. People routinely choose the tile carefully and then leave grout colour to the last day, which is how a calm room ends up looking like graph paper.

Count your materials

A bathroom that works usually has one or two tile materials, one metal finish, and one timber tone. Rooms that feel busy almost always have four or five of each, chosen individually and never together.

If you cannot describe the room's material palette in one sentence, it probably has too many materials in it.