How to Use Accent Tiles & Tile Borders to Enhance Your Luxury Home
A luxury bathroom differs from the ordinary bathroom in the details. One way to really make a bathroom stand out is to use tile borders for bathrooms in unusual ways. Bathroom accent tile can also create unique designs that show off workmanship and endow a space with a sense of decorative magic and style. Shower accent tile can add design to an otherwise bland space. It fits in small nooks and crannies too, like a recessed niche. A little can go a long way. Here are a few different ways you may not have thought of before to use tile borders for bathrooms and accent tile in your next luxury bathroom remodel.
8 Ways to Get the Most of Border and Accent Tiles
A bathroom is probably the smallest room in the house, but it can still make a big style statement. If you focus on establishing high style within the details, it can become a work of art. Whether it is a Japanese Zen look you want or a Roman bath, make sure those borders and accents give it just the right extra touch by learning how to combine them in interesting ways in your bathroom design. Here’s how:
1. Add a Chair Rail
A chair rail isn’t just to keep scuff marks off your walls, it is a visual line of demarcation that gives you the opportunity to have two different design areas on a wall. You can use a dimensional tile border to give it a bigger sculptural weight than surrounding tiles, and tile both sides with different tile or have just one side tiled. In this design, both sides of the chair rail border are tiled, but one with a diagonal placement of tile to provide more interest than a straight rectangular placement.
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2. Create a Mosaic Throw Rug
Border tiles come in dark and light accent pieces, like this mosaic border that make it ideal for demarcating the edges of a faux throw rug in stone or mosaic tile.
You can also lay the inside tiles of the faux throw rug on the diagonal to give it a throw rug look that widens the space visually.
Borders can be curved works of art, like waves, or simple rectangular mosaics. If you use a block border to encase a spiral tile, you can get the best of both worlds.
3. Add Shower or Countertop Backsplashes
Combine accent tiles with simple border tile to create fascinating design ribbons that can act as backsplashes around a countertop.
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Even a single accent tile can be used above a sink to give your bathroom a minimal Zen feel with high style. Remember that a border doesn’t have to be a thin line. It can include accent tiles within it to give you a fat border instead.
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4. Go For a Floor Accent
To add real drama to a space, why not create an accent with tiles that act as an outline for the room like this flowered modern classic-inspired motif?
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Create a custom mosaic design too, if you want, and then border the island for an accent around it.
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5. Shower Mural
Another way to make your bathroom shine is to just to have a mural on your back wall, to give the shower an old-world charm. If you used textured tiles, it can give an additional sense of touch to your bathing experience. You can even use accent with border tiles to make a surround for the tub too. This gives you a place to add toiletries or a place to put your champagne flute when you’re soaking in a bubble bath.
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6. Line a Path or Layout
Maybe your luxury bathroom has several areas laid out that have different functions. You might have one space for bathing, one for dressing, and one for washing your hands or applying makeup. All these spaces can make a path in the bathroom with distinct spaces when you line it with a border. Look how this is done on here and how a fat border is used in the shower stall area too.
7. Frame a Wall, a Mirror, or a Window
You can also frame a wall to make it more like a picture frame and then tile it in with different style or shaped tiles for a mix and match effect. This shower stall uses arabesque tiles matched with light tile border to create a modern backdrop for the showering space.
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8. Accentuate a Mirror
An accent around the mirror to get that extra star power out of a luxury foundation. It tells a person they are about to enter a special place.
Don’t have an arch or pillar to use accent or border tile? It may be time to add one to your luxury bathroom when you plan your next remodel. Look at how this homeowner added mosaic arch to his spa and bathroom.