How to Choose Floor Tiles for the Kitchen?
Avoid Busy Patterns for Floor Tiles
There is nothing wrong with having visual texture on your flooring, but try not to choose anything too busy. Chances are you already have patterns in your backsplash or countertops. Having another pattern on the floor may read as visual clutter. So, how to choose a kitchen floor tile pattern? Floor patterns draw the eye down. To make a kitchen feel bigger, you want to draw the eye up. If you’re going to add a pattern somewhere, it should ideally be at eye level.
Select Larger Sizes for Kitchen Floor Tiles
Keeping on the theme of avoiding busy flooring, let’s move on to how to choose kitchen floor tile size. Try to choose larger floor tiles. If you’re getting faux wood tile, it may be long like real wood planks. If you’re opting for stone or ceramic tile, you may choose 12×12, 12×24, or 24×24 dimensions. The larger size will create a more seamless appearance for your flooring, and it will reduce the amount of grout in the kitchen. That makes for easier cleaning in the long run.
View Tile Samples in Your Home or Business
The lighting in a showroom is going to be different than the lighting in your home or business. You can review samples in a showroom, but bring your favorites back to look at in your lighting. You may find that the colors look completely different in your building, or that the tile you liked in the store isn’t actually your favorite of the bunch. Do these comparisons before selecting your tile, and you can avoid an easy mistake.
Choose Neutral Colors for Longevity
Last but not least, how to choose the kitchen floor tile color? Neutrals are always recommended for long-lasting kitchen designs. You can add pops of color with paint, accessories, lighting, and other features that are easier to swap than tile. If you have a neutral base for your kitchen floor tiles, you can add years to the longevity of the flooring. Even if you change colors or styles in the future, your kitchen flooring will remain relevant.
Think about Maintenance When Choosing Grout Colors
Your grout should complement your flooring, but it should also be easy to maintain. White grout for floor tile is a recipe for disaster. Grout is highly absorbent, and every spill will lead to tedious scrubbing. We recommend choosing a darker shade of grout, like medium grey, beige, brown, tan, black, etc. Just note that the darker you go, the more noticeable the tile borders will be. This may impact how the tiles look next to one another – a harsh division vs. a soft transition.
Picture Your Kitchen as a Whole, Not Just the Floor
No matter where you are with your kitchen remodel, you need to think about the big picture when choosing kitchen floor tiles. How will the kitchen floor tiles connect with the cabinets, backsplash, and countertops? You may use one element of the kitchen as the design dictator, and then make everything else coordinate around that. If you’re maintaining some of your existing kitchen features, use those as the baselines for your design. As long as you maintain a coordinating kitchen design, you can enjoy your remodeled space for years to come.
Photo Credit: whytile.com
