Tile shopping looks simple until you’re standing in a showroom under fluorescent lights, holding two beige squares that look identical, wondering which one is going to make or break your bathroom (and your sanity).
Here’s the thing about tile. It’s permanent, it’s expensive to redo, and it touches everything in a room. The light, the temperature, the way the space feels when you walk in. Get it right and you can enjoy it every day. Get it wrong and you’ll be reminded of that every single day.
So, before you doomscroll through Pinterest, keep reading. As a design + build firm, we’ve dealt with the topic of tile more than you can imagine. And we love it. So trust us when we say, getting it right for your new build or remodel matters.
What Tile Does Your Space Need?
The tile that works on a kitchen backsplash is not the same tile you want in a steamy shower. The tile that anchors a fireplace is not built for a mudroom that sees wet boots eight months a year. Before you fall in love with anything, it’s important to ask the room what it actually has to do. (And by “ask the room” we mean “ask us, the experts” to translate what the room is saying for you!)
How much moisture does it see? How much foot traffic? Does it need to handle dropped pans and muddy paws, or is it your home’s way of flexing its vanity muscles?
Once we know the room’s job description, the material decision gets a hell of a lot easier. (Notice we said easier, not easy.) Performance has to come first. Aesthetics second. That’s how you end up with the best looking, and best functioning, room.
How to Select Bathroom Tiles
Bathrooms are the high-stakes round of tile selection. Water. Humidity. Daily wear. The occasional toddler tsunami. Your tile has to take a beating and still look polished five years in. Most bathroom tiles fall into two camps: porcelain, ceramic, and natural stone.
- Porcelain is the workhorse. Denser, less porous, and built for shower floors and anywhere that sees serious water.
- Ceramic is the lighter lift. Easier to cut, usually more affordable, and a great fit for walls and backsplashes.
- Natural stone is the showstopper. Marble, limestone, travertine. Beautiful variation, no fussy edge pieces required, but the highest maintenance of the three. It needs sealing and softer cleaning products to keep it looking like itself.
All three can look great. The job they’re doing (and how much upkeep you actually want) is what should drive the call.
Then comes finish. Matte tiles hide water spots, give you better grip underfoot, and feel more modern. Glossy tiles bounce light around (a real gift in a small or windowless bathroom) and feel a little more classic. A move we use a lot: matte on the floor, glossy or textured on the walls. And while we’re at it, let’s talk size. Large-format tile feels calm and elevated, smaller mosaics add personality, and mixed with intention, the room lands layered instead of busy.
How to Select Living Room Tiles
Living rooms are a different conversation entirely. You’re not battling moisture. You’re building atmosphere. The tile here is doing emotional work, setting tone and tying the room into the rest of your home.
- Floor tile has to live up to its name. Living rooms see life. Large-format porcelain in a wood-look or stone-look finish is one of our favorite moves. You get the warmth of natural materials with the toughness of porcelain. Translation, it can handle the dog, the toddler, and the dinner party without flinching.
- Fireplace surrounds and accent walls are where you flex. Hand-glazed zellige, fluted stone, a vertical stack pattern. These are the choices that make a room.
How About Selecting Kitchen Tiles?
Backsplashes catch everything. Floors take a beating. We’ve even seen the right tile transform a kitchen on a tighter budget way more than you’d think. Two places to focus:
- The backsplash is your design moment. This is the loudest tile decision in the whole kitchen. Glossy ceramic in a hand-made finish, honed marble, a tight grid of stacked subway. Pick something you actually love, because you’ll see it every single day.
- Floor tile has to keep up. Porcelain in a wood-look or stone-look finish wins here for the same reasons it wins in living rooms. It cleans up fast, it doesn’t dent, and it plays nice with whatever cabinet finish you’ve got going on.
Here’s something we say in every kitchen project: your backsplash and your countertop have to be picked together, not separately. The undertone of one shifts how the other reads, and the showroom lighting is lying to you about both. That’s the kind of decision that’s a lot easier when one team is making them in the same room.
Any Other Spaces Worth Tiling?
A few rooms get overlooked in the tile conversation, but they punch above their weight:
- Entryway. First impression of your home and the spot that takes the hardest beating, so porcelain or natural stone is what holds up here.
- Laundry room. Splashes and spills make tile the obvious call, and it’s a low-stakes place to have a little fun with patterns.
- Mudroom. Boots, paws, gear, weather. Tile it.
- Outdoor spaces. Exterior-rated porcelain carries your interior design language outside without giving up on performance.
Creating a Cohesive Look With Tile
You can pick the most beautiful bathroom tile in Seattle and the most stunning living room tile on the planet, but if they don’t talk to each other, your home will feel like a sample sale. This cohesion is where tile projects either come together or fall apart.
Now, cohesion doesn’t mean matching, but it does mean consistency in tone and intention. Stick to a tight color story across your whole home, with a couple of core tones repeated in different ways. At Moxie Collaborative, we design and build, so the tile decisions you make in our studio are tested against the real-world execution of your space. No translation lost between vendors. No surprises at install. No finger-pointing when something doesn’t line up. Just a highly-experienced, no B.S. team of women who actually give a damn about getting your home right. Oh, and tile that works as great as it looks.