Kitchen Tiles: How To Choose The Best Ones

The kitchen is one of the places where you spend most of your time at home. If you want to renovate your kitchen tiles, you need to focus on some special options. Kitchen types of tiles can give you an idea about this.

Not only furniture but also wall coverings can be a style choice for you. When you want to do the tiling, you need to think about a much larger area, including the stove, appliances or countertop. All these spaces can be managed in different ways, as the kitchen has thousands of allies that make it inviting, dynamic, colorful and creative.

Until recently, walls painted with special anti-stain and anti-humidity paints were in trend. But nowadays, it focuses on using kitchen tiles that match furniture and flooring.

Types of Kitchen Tiles

If the environment where the tiles will be laid has a minimal style, it will be appropriate to resort to a geometric, linear, and designed decoration. If the environment is rustic, you could focus on monochrome tiles or, at most, with simple decorations.

It is important to select carefully each tile for a specific function. And it is also better to choose excellent quality tiles with high mechanical and chemical properties to avoid cracking, discoloration, or damage caused by usage.

The Following Types of Tiles can be used in a kitchen

Ceramic

Thanks to their structural characteristics capable of guaranteeing excellent functional performance, ceramic tiles are probably the most commonly used. They usually have a smooth, dirt-repellent surface. They can be easily assembled and combined. You can find it in different colors. With ceramic tiles, it is possible to cover the entire kitchen top, all the walls, or only some of its parts, the wall behind the sink, the wall behind the stove. They are perfect for creating style and color accents, ideal for renovating any kitchen from classic to modern.

Porcelain Stoneware

It has excellent resistance to mechanical stress. They are produced faithfully to the originals of natural elements such as stone, wood and concrete and come in many varieties. These attractive and aesthetic looking kitchen tiles bring quality to the fore in elegant environments.

Single firing

These tiles are made with specific pressing processes and undergo single firing. These types of tiles are widely used in open-plan environments where the kitchen also serves as a living space. It has more porosity than ceramic. Therefore, they are tiles with a weaker structure and easier to drill. So, they are suitable for mounting indoors and  on the wall.

Double fired

Usually these are enameled products that require two firings: the first to make the load-bearing support and the second to obtain the finish.

It is made of a porous material with ductile consistency and glazed on the surface to achieve the desired color. With the compression of the material, their water absorption capacity increases. There are double fired kitchen tiles in different colors that reinterpret the materials and colors of traditional ceramics in a contemporary way. They have a very elegant look.

Terracotta

Terracotta is a natural material that derives from a particular clay firing treatment . This allows to obtain a coating characterized by a very wide chromatic spectrum ranging from red to yellow.

Terracotta is a totally organic and environmentally friendly building product, obtained from special processing and firing of clay.

Hi-tech

The result of improved production technologies, these kitchen tiles are mounted in modern and minimalist kitchens, where steel and glass are the most common materials.

How To Choose Kitchen Tiles

When choosing tiles, the first thing to do is to create an ideal and harmonious combination with the style of the furniture you have.

The size of the kitchen is also an issue to think about. Where the tiles will be mounted. If the room is small, light-colored tiles should be preferred instead. For very spacious environments it is preferred to turn to dark or opaque tones. The flooring will also be one of the characteristics to be taken into consideration to have a harmonious and elegant effect, and which will need to be adapted to avoid creating unpleasant contrasts.

You can create beautiful compositions with kitchen coverings, by adding a movement to the wall and make it more colorful. When choosing the ideal coating for the kitchen, it is necessary to keep in mind some basic rules that will help improve the room:

  • If your kitchen is quite small and the cabinets and furniture are dark in color, choosing light-colored tiles can help to contrast and expand the kitchen, at least visually.
  • Choose a non-porous, easy-to-clean liner suitable for a potentially humid and smoky environment such as the kitchen.
  • Choose good quality tiles, with high chemical and mechanical characteristics, destined to last over time. Therefore, do not base your choice only on aesthetic taste.