Q&A: What are the best tiles to future-proof my home interiors?
Ape Work, anti-slip porcelain, based on aged mortar with fossilised wood inclusions for decorative effect, from €44 per metre square, multiple suppliers including tiledesign.ie (Cork).
Finding tiling makes many decorators both excited and extremely nervous. Cemented into place for at least a decade, it’s expensive to install, and not something to get wrong. We took a look around the showrooms and asked buyers in the business to give us their advice for quality, classic choices for walls and floors for 2023.
Keep in mind,that throwing a highly complex colourway all over a room (rather than onto one area) is a commitment to fashion — and fashions change.
Marbles with fascinating quartz tracery and dramatic ground colours have taken the tiling world by storm. In 2023 recrystallised carbonates and limestone travertine finishes, will be firm favourites for floors, walls and counters in exquisitely realised performance porcelains.
Mark English, specification developer for Versatile, recently returned from their regular grand tour of the tradeshows in Italy and Spain.
“The strong trends in tiles going into 2023 are marble-effects in slab formats, 6mm porcelain and travertine,” says Mark. “With the advancements in digital printing and 4D surface technology, the graphics, aesthetics and sense of depth that is now achievable on porcelain is amazing."
The director of Versatile, Andrew Treacy, adds: “The Fabbrica Marmi e Graniti marbles (including a mesmerising emerald Connemara marble) have metallic sparkle incorporated in the glaze, giving a beautiful lustrous sheen.
“There was a large selection of travertine in the collections in vein-cut and quarter-cut graphics. The 4D surface technology delivers a lovely surface detail.”
Arte, travertine-style slabs, with dimensions of 275cm by 100cm cost €129 sq m at versatile.ie. Look out for elegant maxi-slabs for floors and walls of up to 300cm by 150cm each all over the market in materials from limestone to zinc. Refined, robust porcelain will increasingly take on granite and quartzite for kitchen worktops.
Combining marble style with long, trending sleek ribs, Dual White Décor has a grooved wave texture in receding, honed white marble reminiscent of Calacatta or Cararra (walls). Highly architectural, it’s just €71.82 for 1.33 square metres, deluxebathrooms.ie. Brushed brass fittings look magnificent against all marbles and ornate, metamorphic tiling.
Intricate, botanical fresco have been enjoyed in aristocratic bathhouses since Roman times, with paintings on plaster of dream-like jungles and exotic gardens surviving at Herculaneum and Pompeii on the Amalfi coast. Gigantic flowerscapes on woven textures, are influencing AW tiling choices in a trend dubbed “biophilia”.
Blossoming to immersive scales, this imagery is no longer confined to vinyl wallpaper and digital panels, with painterly porcelain and ceramic tile sets in super-sized panels, with few or no visible grout seams.
Gorgeous, La Fabbrica botanical stoneware slabs are available in nine exotic plant and perched and prowling animal patterns in various colourways. A show-stopping background to a free-standing slipper bath or frameless shower at 280cm by 120cm, and 120 by 60cm (set of four), from €533sqm, versatile.ie. Other choices include Abe Silk and the ceramic range murals at Surface View (UK).
For abstracted, modern walls, we adore the shattered and reshuffled sketched petal imagery of Botanic Cold, in nine porcelain shade variations — a talented, illusion-tile design to rotate and play around with on install; 14.7cm by 14.7cm, from the Chicago collection by Dune (Spain); €42.99 sq m. It's a winning budget bouquet, see chictiles.ie.
Playful, young, delicate tile colours have emerged over the past two years, lead up by the mid-century-inspired Danish pastels. With a cool grey base and understated, these sage greens, celestial blues, lavenders and candy almond pinks are refreshing and chic, and can take a range of companion grout colours.
Kevin Dwyer, development manager with City Tiles & Bathrooms, says: “There is nothing mild about a pastel tile design impact and they can be incorporated as a subtle pop of colour on a feature wall or in the shower area. Our favourite mix is pairing soft pastel pink tones with brushed gold brassware for a completely contemporary design.”
Equipe Arrow vertical tiles in White and Blush pink mix up into a fresh, delicately art deco celebration, from €53.76 per square metre, citytilesandbathrooms.ie.
Try out these crisp, clean dual-colour takes, and sophisticated pastels in a speckled terrazzo (Kevin adds that terrazzo will continue to make its mark in 2023 with colour schemes and inclusion scales for everyone; from €41.80 CTB). Add a black tap-ware in angular designs for a mid-century vibe. Danish Pastels blend beautifully into a 1930s cottage-core bathroom with the Edwardian touches of shell fluting, fresh greenery, mosaic and personalised, vintage touches.
Original Style (multiple suppliers) has a Nordic-inclined, striped sherbet pink brick in a square Kit Kat-style tiling — delicious with rain-grey paintwork for a kitchen where it sings with blonde wood, and white-ware. Also available in a delightful Andy Pandy blue/white, and green/grey for a harlequin set; €90 per square metre (20cm by 20cm each).
Not moved by acres of pale, urban modernity? If you love period styles and/or saturated colour, tile at least one wall, return or splash-back dark in 2023. Anthracite (a warm, soft black rather than a Hammer Horror ink) and deep Atlantic blues, are handsome character shades in atmospheric bathroom tiling adventures. Ornate and beautiful, add real theatre with translucent shine or matt surfacing, married to reeded glass and heritage steam-punk tap-ware including brushed metal shower risers and cross head taps for indicated Great House history.
Lampas Marine (a jaw-dropping peacock blue) with its rustic edging, has been the cult classic in glossy, subway tiles since 2021 with interior stylists. The green/blue family of gem colours beloved since the Arts & Crafts movement, are still showing strongly in popular rectangular tiles (upright for a startling change). Dive deeper with Poitier Indigo Wall Tile 7.5cm x 30cm, €23.52 for just under 0.5 square metre, deluxebathrooms.ie.
Original Style includes an Oken Hexagonal tile in a middling black-board black in a hexagonal tile, which can take to the floor or the walls for a 1970s trip; €30 per square metre. Gorgeous with a spice or gold-shaded grout. Keep your darker-shaded bathroom or kitchen tiling fresh with textured porcelains, and neutral or white expanses elsewhere.
Pat Humphreys is the owner of Tile Design, Cork, with Peter O’Donovan (tiledesign.ie). Fascinated by both aesthetics and technological advances, he was impressed by the minimalist, beautiful marriage of material influences at Cersaie, the Bologna Tile Fair in Italy this September.
“Soft stones and designs mixing concrete and stone in light greys and creams are the latest look for floors," he says.
"Square floor tiles continuing from the floors up to the walls and keeping the same grout line, perfect a plain and even look in bathrooms. The combining of wood, cement, rust, reliefs and neutral colours really embellish any space with their decorative richness.”
One or two tonal tile treatments in vitrified stone, concrete, zinc or wood-effect porcelain tiling will anchor and define a room. Perfect for an organic, pure feel, these nature-born,
earthy colours continue to lead the market in large format tiling that flow under the threshold, out to outdoor patios.
Large-format and plank-style wood-effect tiles provide ideal emitters for under-floor heating married to a heat-pump or using electrical matting. With the latest high-definition print technology and dense random knots, inclusions, fossils and mineral striations, it’s hard to separate porcelains from organic materials.
Trending light and dark grey plank and parquet timber can be mimicked perfectly in robust, slip-resistant porcelain.
Try richly coloured, split-wood looks for walls in the moisture-laden environments of kitchens and bathrooms.
To keep the look pure and organic, use a co-coordinating grout colour or specify rectified tiles (edge to edge) — not something for a DIY weekend warrior due to the danger of “lippage” and future chipping.
Stone mad? There’s a wealth of marble-speckled conglomerate terrazzo tiles comprised of marble chunks in a concrete/resin mix or convincing porcelain tiles, perfect where you cannot afford to pour a whole new floor. Prices range from €55-€90 per square metre. Try Stracciatella Collection at Italian Tile & Stone, tiles.ie.
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