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The variety of solutions available today for designing, decorating and furnishing a bathroom can be very confusing. Start by choosing your inspiration themes, to give you a clear overall picture of the end result and the room’s style.
If you’re still at the initial design stage, try searching Pinterest and Instagram or browse interior design magazines or furnishing catalogues for some starting-points.
So in this article, we’ve brought together 5 inspirations for tiling a modern bathroom with convenient, elegant solutions.
Why choose ceramics for a modern bathroom?
Porcelain stoneware and white-body tiles are the ideal choice for anyone wanting to create a stylish, practical modern bathroom. With their versatility of appearance and functional benefits, ceramic coverings fit perfectly into any project, transforming a bathroom into an elegant, contemporary interior.
The textures and colours available range from the elegant minimalism of matt surfaces through to the marble or natural stone effect, ideal if you want a more refined, luxurious design scheme. You can customise every detail of your bathroom with coverings that adapt effortlessly to the most widely varying styles: from Nordic bathrooms with neutral colours and simple lines to industrial chic designs that require personality and modernity.
Since we’re talking about the bathroom, the issue of functional performance is also crucial. Their resistance to mould and bacteria, and easy cleaning and care, make ceramic tiles the best solution for this space.
Last but not least, stoneware tiles are also available in a large range of sizes. Large slabs with joints of minimal width are ideal if you’re aiming for an effect of visual continuity, perfect for tiling small bathrooms. On the other hand, with mosaic tiles you can be imaginative with decorative details, highlighting specific areas of your bathroom with a creative, individual touch.
Covering ideas for modern bathrooms
When designing a modern bathroom, the choice of floor and wall tiles is fundamental in defining the personality of this part of your home.
From colour-matched surfaces and more neutral shades, for a clean, minimalist effect, to the boldest details, such as focus walls in bright shades or wall tiles with more creative patterns, the options are endless. So coverings can also play a central role, adding individuality and dynamism to a room that’s often overlooked.
Therefore, below we’ll examine 5 creative ideas for tiling a modern bathroom with the optimal blend of style and convenience.
Matching floors and walls
Designing the interior with matching floors and walls is one of the most effective solutions for an attractive modern bathroom. Using the same colour for the floors and walls provides a uniform look, ideal for making the room appear larger and offering continuity.
With this approach, if you prefer interiors with delicate colours and no sharp contrasts, the ideal choice is shades of white, beige, grey or greige. These solutions are especially suitable for small bathrooms, where the optical impression can be all-important and light shades naturally make the interior seem brighter and larger.
To ensure that the design scheme doesn’t become monotonous, try using combinations of textures, such as an alternation of matt and glossy surfaces, or including slightly different shades, to add variety without sacrificing the minimalist effect.
The most popular tiles include those with concrete effect and stone effect: perfect for anyone in search of a minimalist bathroom or one in industrial, Nordic or contemporary style.
Some ideas for tiles in neutral colours for the bathroom? For example, explore our Room Wall and Mystone Berici collections.
Focus walls with daring designs
Focus walls are perfect for giving a modern bathroom personality without losing a tasteful overall look. The use of 3D-effect tiles is a bold choice that adds depth and personality to the interior. With their geometrical or irregular textures, these wall tiles generate eye-catching interplays of light and shade that add a touch of dynamism.
To maintain a tasteful overall look, the bold design of focus walls has to be balanced with neutral shades and simple forms in the rest of the room. An example? A three-dimensional wall in the shower area or behind a free-standing bathtub can become the bathroom’s focal point, with understated, minimalist coverings chosen for the floors and the other surfaces.
Colour contrasts for a trendy bathroom
Colour contrasts are one of the most popular modern bathroom trends, especially when the aim is an elegant, striking interior. Start choosing the bathroom’s colours and the effects you want to achieve right from the design phase: for example, you can combine dark and pale tiles to generate an impression of depth and highlight specific areas of the bathroom. Solid colours, subtle shades, desaturated or bright hues, textured or with 3D relief patterns, plain tiles or decors: the Marazzi collections offer you a wealth of colourful tiles ideas for a bright modern bathroom!
Some colourful tile ideas for the bathroom? Check out Flora and Bliss, for example.
Wood-effect stoneware for a warm, cosy bathroom
If you love parquet and would like to be able to include it even in your bathroom, wood-effect stoneware is the ideal solution. The interior will immediately become warmer and cosier, while maintaining a style that’s modern and functional in all respects.
In fact, this material accurately reproduces the natural veining and shade variations of wood, combining them with the strength and convenience typical of stoneware. The advantage of ceramics is that they can be installed anywhere, on floors and walls, even in direct contact with water: this enables the creation of fascinating boiserie panel effects running on from the floor, or mix & match pairings of sizes and finishes.
For an attractive overall design scheme, wood-effect stoneware can be combined with sanitary fixtures in contemporary style and modern furniture with simple forms. This combination creates a bathroom that conveys a natural, relaxed mood without sacrificing practicality and easy care. For example, take a look at our Vero and Oltre collections.
Floral decorative details for your modern-style bathroom
Have you ever considered a modern bathroom featuring tiles with exquisite floral motifs? Botanical patterns are one of the current trends with the most interesting potential, able to transform any interior into a little sanctuary of style and originality. These decors are perfect both on small tiles, for a discreet, refined touch, and on wallpaper-effect maxi tiles, ideal for creating dramatic featured walls.
You can use floral tiles to cover specific areas of your bathroom, such as the shower; the golden rule is to use decors sparingly and balance their flamboyant patterns with plain, neutral tiles.
Some ideas for floral tiles? Check out the White Deco and Poster collections, perfect for adding a touch of natural, contemporary elegance to your bathroom.
Tips for optimising bathroom design with stoneware
Choosing porcelain stoneware for your bathroom floor tiles gives you a versatile material suitable for all needs, but to get the very best from your modern bathroom design you need to exploit its potential to the full and also improve your interior’s practicality and aesthetics.
As already mentioned, using large-size tiles is strongly recommended for small bathrooms: since they’re so large, the joints between them are reduced to a minimum, creating an effect of visual continuity that makes the room seem bigger. If these tiles are chosen in pale, neutral colours like white, beige or delicate greys, they help to reflect the natural light and create a brighter, airier interior.
Mosaic decorative details can transform small areas of your bathroom into unique focal points. By using mosaics to decorate shower alcoves, edgings or small parts of walls, you can add visual variety without overloading the design scheme as a whole. With their durability and variety of styles, ceramic mosaics are also ideal for creating contrasts or geometrical ornamentation that bestow vibrancy on the interior.
Last but not least, mixing textures is another excellent strategy for anyone wishing to design a modern bathroom with a dynamic, original look. Combining smooth surfaces with tactile finishes, such as glossy stoneware with the concrete effect, generates intriguing contrasts that give the bathroom character while maintaining the right visual balance between elegance and modernity.
To conclude, convenience, aesthetics and versatility are the keywords for a creative, practical, refined modern bathroom to suit all styles and requirements.
Discover how Marazzi tiles can transform your modern bathroom.