For most homeowners, the fun part of a tile project is usually visualizing the space and gathering inspiration. Saving photos, building a tile mood board, visiting showrooms, and ordering samples all help you get one step closer to making your ideas a reality.
However, the often overlooked part is everything that happens between finding a tile you love and placing an order. Let’s explore what actually happens after choosing tile so you can see how all the pieces come together.
Visiting Showrooms & Creating Flatlays
While online photos are great for inspiration in tile designs, seeing materials in person can completely change your perspective. That’s why visiting a showroom is often one of the first steps in the selection process. In our showroom, you can see and touch tile samples to get a better sense of how the materials look and feel up close.
Creating a tile flatlay also helps you visualize how colors, textures, and materials look together. If possible, bringing samples (or photos) of other materials in your home to the showroom can give you a better idea of how tile will fit into the whole design of your space.
Testing Samples in Your Space
Seeing tile in a showroom helps you understand how it looks and feels, but samples on a shelf can look completely different under your lighting, next to your cabinets, and with your furniture. What might have looked neutral in the showroom might actually appear warmer or cooler in your space. At the same time, a tile that seemed slightly too dark or too light might look perfect next to your fixtures.
To get the most out of your tile samples, go beyond simply looking at them and put them to the test.
- Complementary materials:
- Hold the tile up next to your cabinets, walls, furniture, appliances, floors, counters, and any other materials.
- If you’re repainting, resurfacing, or refinishing other areas at the same time, use swatches of those materials to see how the tile looks next to them as well.
- If you’re using multiple kinds of tile in different rooms, do a “sightline test” by arranging samples in the spaces to check how they look together, not just individually.
- Lighting conditions:
- Check how the tile looks in the morning, mid-day, evening, and night.
- Wait for different weather conditions to see how the tile looks on a cloudy day versus a day with full, direct sunlight.
- Gauge how you feel about the tile’s reflectivity in different lighting. High-gloss tile can sometimes feel blinding in areas that regularly get direct sunlight.
- Turn on different lights in your space to see how the tile looks under overhead light, lamps you use, and natural light.
- Sizing:
- Try to get a sense of the tile’s scale. Large-format tile can look completely different in its full size versus a small sample.
- Likewise, tile that looked large in the showroom might actually seem small in your space (or vice versa).
- Practical use:
- For flooring samples, try to (safely) gauge how they feel underfoot. If large enough, test the tile against bare feet, socks, and shoes to see if you like how it feels.
- Test counter or backsplash samples by simulating how easy they are to clean up if water, food, grease, or coffee spills.
Confirming the Tile is Right for the Application
When you design with tile, remember that a sample might look perfect in your room, but still be wrong for the project. During the selection process, you’ll need to think beyond how the tile looks to how it will function in the space. Moisture exposure, traffic levels, slip resistance, and maintenance requirements can all influence whether a product is suitable for the application.
The goal during this step is to make sure the tile you love will actually hold up in the environment where you’re installing it. A floor tile needs a different slip resistance rating than a wall tile. Likewise, a tile going into a steam shower has different requirements than one used for a kitchen backsplash. And if any of your tile is going outdoors, you’ll need to think about freeze-thaw compatibility.
Read More: Our guide on How to Choose Tile You’ll Love covers what to look for when evaluating tile for specific projects.
Locking in the Project Scope
Once you’ve landed on the right tile, the next step is translating your ideas into an actual plan. That starts with accurate measurements. Determining the amount of tile you need is more than calculating the room’s square footage. Doorways, windows, niches, and irregular room shapes all affect your calculation.
Your tile layout pattern also plays a bigger role than you might expect. Running tile in a straight stack pattern uses much less material than arranging tile in a herringbone or chevron pattern, as you need extra tile for angled cuts.
Your project scope also needs to include trim, grout, and tile transition materials. Planning these factors at the same time as the tile itself helps you create a more accurate project budget while also making your design feel more cohesive and intentional.
Understanding Lead Times & Order Timing
One of the biggest surprises of a tile project is how lead times affect your schedule. While some projects are in stock and ready to ship quickly, others are special orders and take several weeks to arrive. If you’re handling the ordering process but working around a contractor’s schedule, you can avoid expensive delays.
While lead times alone shouldn’t determine what tile you ultimately choose, the earlier you ask about shipping times, the better you can plan ahead for the rest of your project.
Expert Insight: Ordering all your materials at once doesn’t just help with timelines. It ensures your entire project comes from the same dye lot. If you run short and have to order a single extra case weeks later, the color or finish may vary slightly due to a different production run at the factory.
Get Help Planning Your Tile Project
The tile selection process can be complicated, but you don’t need to plan everything out yourself. At Tile X Design, our project consultants are here to help you with everything from putting together a tile flatlay to building an order that includes every last detail.
Want to get started? Schedule an appointment to talk to one of our tile experts!