Mosaic Tiles in Modern Bathroom Design

Mosaics have had a very long and distinguished history in modern architectural design. First appearing in the Middle East as simple, stylised geometric shapes, the Greeks took them into their current and best-known form. Even after the Romans made them fashionable across Europe, the Greeks were always held to have the best mosaic artists. While they dropped out of use after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the movement away from Classical styles of architecture, from the Renaissance onwards mosaic tiles have seen new life in European home design and have now become a fixed part of any modern home.

Mosaic tiles nowadays tend to be a little simpler and scope than they used to be. While mosaics may summon up in the mind images of vast portraits utilising dozens, if not hundreds, of individual coloured tiles, modern designs tend to be a little simpler. While enterprising and resourceful home decorators may try to replicate the mosaics of old, modern mosaic tiles are often less excessively used.

The Mosaic Tile

Usually, modern mosaic tiles are small, square-shaped tiles of varying colours and shades, usually either coloured in a single block tone or else bearing a small stylised image in the centre. Often the pictures are natural in theme, such as small flowers, suns, ocean waves or leaves. They may be made of a number of materials too, although the most common tend to be plastic, ceramic, glass or stone. Metal is also used on occasion, but are much rare.

As a rule, such tiles are very durable. They can withstand a lot of punishment and come away relatively unscathed. This makes the ideal for use in bathrooms that experience a fair bit of foot traffic, or else can expect to come under heavy blows from time to time.

Further they tend to be very resistant to the sorts of stains and chemicals that a bathroom will likely experience, such as bleaches, shampoos and hair dyes. Thus they can last a very long time before they need to be replaced. Maintenance is very easy too, as most mosaic tiles are very easily cleaned and require only the occasional polish every now and then at most.

How Mosaic Tiles are Used

Commonly, they are used more to accentuate pre-existing designs and other tile types. For example a mosaic tile bearing a specific design may be interspaced through a collection of block-colour tiles to add variety, or else used to border a fixture such as a sink or bath.

Another use that they can be put towards as well is creating subtler, softer colours and shifts in tones. This is useful in bathrooms where you want a much more muted style than other tiles may offer, where the large sizes and vibrant colours may dazzle and overwhelm a bit too much. That said, mosaics can also be used to create very eye-catching displays too, depending on the colours and overall design used.

While it’s not common, mosaic tiles can also be used in their traditional way and used to create entire pictures on a wall. You may have seen this from time to time in public yourself, and the effect is very easy to achieve with a little bit of vision and creativity. Try to envision what sort of image you wish to have, and use your tiles to pick it out. This is a very advanced use of mosaic tiles, however, and can be difficult to pull off without an understanding of how all the different tiles play off and complement one another. If you’re unsure how it will look, try to do it “dry” first on a sheet on the floor. This will allow you to work out the details and avoid mistakes that cannot be easily corrected.