Are Kitchen Tiles Out of Fashion? What’s Actually Dating in 2026, and What Never Will

No, kitchen tile as a category isn’t going anywhere. Specific choices inside that category are dating faster than homeowners expect, though, and the pattern is consistent enough after enough kitchen jobs to call it out by name. A 3×6 white subway backsplash installed in 2015 reads differently now than it did then. The tile itself hasn’t changed. What people notice when they walk into a kitchen has.

What’s Actually Going Out of Style in Kitchen Tile Right Now

Four things come up on repeat, and they cluster together more than most homeowners realize. Standard 3×6 subway tile in the classic brick-lay pattern, once the safe default for nearly every kitchen backsplash, now reads as builder-grade rather than intentional. All-glossy finishes across a full wall or floor are losing ground to matte and textured surfaces, partly because glossy shows water spots and fingerprints under kitchen lighting in a way matte doesn’t. Cool gray palettes, the ones that dominated a decade of renovations, are giving way to warmer neutrals. And stark white floor tile with no texture or variation is starting to look clinical next to the warmer kitchens showing up in current builds.

None of those four are wrong, exactly. A cool gray kitchen from 2016 still functions fine and still sells a house. What’s shifting is which choices photograph as current and which ones photograph as a specific decade.

Trending in Kitchen Tiles for 2026

Warm tones are the biggest single shift. Terracotta, olive, warm taupe, and greige are replacing the blue-gray palettes that ran the show for years, and it shows up in tile the same way it’s showing up in paint and cabinetry. Texture is the second big one: handmade-look glazed tile with visible surface variation, instead of the perfectly flat and uniform look that dominated the last cycle. Elongated subway formats, 3×12 and 4×12 rather than the standard 3×6, keep the classic shape while updating the proportions. Natural stone look in porcelain, marble and limestone patterns without the maintenance headaches of the real material, is showing up on backsplashes and floors both. And patterned tile is having a real moment, particularly on kitchen floors and as a backsplash accent rather than covering every surface.

Worth saying plainly: not every trend list agrees with itself. One source calls glossy finishes outdated while another is pushing glossy as the 2026 pick for backsplashes. Both are describing real jobs happening right now. Trend cycles overlap more than the tidy blog roundups suggest, and a good installer treats that as normal rather than a contradiction to resolve.

Are Patterned Tiles Going Out of Style?

Not right now, and the current direction is actually the opposite. Patterned tile is trending upward for 2026, especially on bathroom and kitchen floors and as a contained backsplash moment rather than wall-to-wall coverage. That said, pattern is the single riskiest category for a homeowner asking about longevity, because bold pattern is exactly the kind of choice that reads as “very 2024” a few years down the line if it covers too much of the room.

The fix most designers and installers land on is containment. A patterned floor works in a powder room or as a runner strip in a galley kitchen far better than it works across a full open-concept kitchen floor, because the smaller footprint keeps the commitment low if the pattern does eventually feel dated. Same logic applies to a patterned backsplash behind a range versus patterned tile on every wall.

The Kitchen Tile Choices That Never Go Out of Style

Subway tile in its classic 3×6 or updated elongated shape, natural stone or a good stone-look porcelain in warm neutral tones, herringbone and chevron laid in a neutral tile, and checkerboard done in soft or muted tones rather than stark black and white. Hexagon and penny tile round out the list, especially in neutral colourways rather than trend-forward accent shades.

The common thread across all five isn’t the shape. It’s that each one has already survived multiple design cycles without disappearing. Subway tile was designed in 1904 for New York’s subway stations, and it’s still the single most requested backsplash format on kitchen jobs a hundred and twenty years later. That kind of track record doesn’t happen by accident.

How to Pick a Kitchen Tile That Won’t Look Dated in Ten Years

Put trend colour and pattern in the places that are cheap and easy to change later, not in the tile itself. Light fixtures, hardware, paint, and even a backsplash if it’s a smaller run can absorb a trend without much cost to swap out in five years. A full kitchen floor or a wall-to-wall shower can’t be swapped that easily, so that’s where a neutral, proven shape and colour earns its keep.

Lean toward a natural material or a convincing natural-look porcelain over a synthetic pattern or an aggressively trend-forward colour on any large surface. And keep grout in a tone close to the tile rather than a bold contrast, since heavy contrast grout is one of the fastest-dating choices on this whole list even though it photographs well in a single showroom sample.

What to Do If Your Kitchen Tile Already Looks Dated

A full tile replacement is rarely the first move, and it’s usually not the right one either. Regrouting a dated contrast-grout backsplash, or swapping just the backsplash while leaving floor tile alone, solves most of the “this kitchen looks stuck in a decade” complaint at a fraction of a full retile. Floor tile is the bigger commitment and the one worth thinking through carefully before touching it, since it’s tied into cabinetry height, appliance clearances, and transition strips to adjoining rooms in ways a backsplash simply isn’t.

If the tile itself is holding up structurally and the complaint is purely about how it looks, that’s a design conversation before it’s an installation one. Cracking grout, loosening tiles, or water getting behind the wall is a different problem entirely, and worth a proper look before deciding anything cosmetic. If you’d rather not guess at it, ask us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the latest trend in kitchen tiles for 2026?

Warm tones, textured handmade-look glazes, elongated subway formats, and natural stone look in porcelain. Patterned tile is also trending, mostly as a contained accent rather than a full-room treatment.

What are the outdated tile colours right now?

Cool gray palettes and stark, texture-free white are the two colour choices losing the most ground. Both dominated the last decade of kitchen renovations, and both are giving way to warmer neutrals like terracotta, greige, and warm taupe.

What colour tile never goes out of style?

Warm neutral tones in a classic shape. White subway in an updated elongated format, natural stone colours, and soft greige all hold up across design cycles better than a saturated trend colour ever does.

Is 3×6 subway tile outdated?

Trending away from it, not gone entirely. The classic 3×6 brick-lay reads as builder-grade in a lot of current kitchens, but elongated formats like 3×12 keep the same proven shape while feeling current again.

Kitchen tile decisions get expensive to reverse once they’re on the wall or floor, and a showroom sample under bright display lighting rarely tells the whole story. A walkthrough with someone who installs kitchen tile daily catches the choices that will age well before the thinset ever gets mixed.

Related Questions

• Are Zellige Tiles Going Out of Style?
• Are Tile Floors Out of Style?
• Are Glass Subway Tiles Out of Style?
• Are Tile Backsplashes Still in Style?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are Square Tiles Outdated?

Short answer: no. Square tiles are not outdated, and if anything they are having a moment right now, back on backsplashes, shower walls and kitchen floors after a decade of subway tile dominating almost every renovation photo. What actually dates a tile job is rarely the shape. It is the grout colour, the layout, and the size choice underneath it.

Are Square Tiles Outdated? The Short Answer

Square tile never really left. It just spent a few years standing behind subway tile at the front counter. Designers are now calling square the more versatile of the two shapes, symmetrical, easy to repeat, and forgiving of almost any finish. We install a lot of it, and the jobs that look dated five years later almost never come down to “square tile, ugh.” They come down to a grout colour nobody thinks about until the job is done.

Why Square Tile Never Actually Left

Symmetry is the whole story here. A square tile reads the same from every angle, which is exactly why it pairs so easily with checkerboard, stripe and herringbone-adjacent layouts that rectangular formats fight against. Homeowners who ask us to “make it feel current” almost always end up choosing square over subway once they see a sample board next to each other.

We have kitchens we tiled a decade ago in 4×4 square that still photograph well. Rectangular subway from the same era, especially in a bright white with grey grout, is the one clients now ask us to rip out. Shape held up. Colour choice did not.

Square vs Subway vs Rectangular: What Homeowners Are Actually Asking For

Subway tile carries a strong reputation for durability and easy cleaning, and that reputation is earned. But it also carries a directional look, long horizontal lines that push a room in one direction. Square breaks that up. Rooms feel calmer, less “hallway,” when the tile stops pulling the eye sideways.

Rectangular still wins for making a narrow bathroom or galley kitchen look longer. That part of the old advice is still true. For anywhere the goal is a grounded, settled feel instead, square is the better call, and it is the shape we get asked for most on new shower and backsplash jobs this year.

Material matters as much as shape in this comparison. Porcelain, ceramic, glass and natural stone all come in square format now, so the shape decision does not lock a homeowner into one look. A glass square in a kitchen backsplash reflects light differently than a matte porcelain square on a shower floor, and clients who assume “square tile” means one specific finish are usually surprised by how much range sits inside that single format.

When Square Makes a Small Bathroom Look Bigger, Not Smaller

Big square format, 12×12 and up, fewer grout lines, more visual continuity across the floor. That combination reads larger, not busier. Small-format square, the 2×2 and penny styles, does the opposite job well: it adds texture in a shower niche or on a small accent wall without fighting the room’s proportions. Both are square. Neither is dated. The size decision is where a bathroom lives or dies.

What Actually Dates a Tile Job (It’s Rarely the Shape)

Grout colour ages a tile installation faster than anything else we touch. Bright white grout against a bright white square tile photographed beautifully in 2015 and now reads flat and clinical in almost every listing photo we see. Charcoal or a tone-matched grout on the same exact tile looks like it was installed last month.

Trend colours on the tile itself are the second culprit. Grey subway everywhere, greige everything, that specific cool-toned grey that dominated 2016 through 2019 renovations, that is the palette clients now call outdated, not the shape underneath it. Warm neutrals, terracotta, and deeper tone-on-tone combinations are what is replacing it heading into 2026.

What Tile Will Never Go Out of Style?

Natural stone, subway in a warm off-white, terra cotta, hexagon in a classic black-and-white pairing, zellige. All five keep coming back because none of them are colour trends, they are material and shape choices with centuries of use behind them. Square belongs on that list too, for the same reason: it is a format, not a palette, and formats age slower than colours do.

Penny tile deserves a mention here specifically because it is square in miniature. Its grout-heavy surface was originally a practical choice for bathroom floors, more grip underfoot, and that practical origin is exactly why it never fully disappears from renovation trend lists.

Are Square Tiles Coming Back in Style?

They are already back. Designers have been saying it since late 2024, and the material orders we place reflect it: square-format requests on backsplash jobs are up noticeably against this time two years ago. Subway still gets specified, but usually now as an accent, not the whole wall.

What changed is less about the tile and more about what people want a kitchen to feel like. Directional, busy layouts are giving way to calmer, more settled ones, and square tile is the easiest way to get there without a full renovation budget.

What Are the Trends in Tile for 2026?

Checkerboard layout, back in a big way. Stripe patterns using square and rectangular formats side by side. Tile drenching, running the same tile from floor to ceiling in a small bathroom, no break at the tub line. Textural finishes, hand-glazed and slightly irregular surfaces instead of the dead-flat gloss that dominated the last decade.

Terracotta is having its third or fourth revival depending how you count, and it works especially well against Vancouver Island’s older housing stock, where a warmer palette suits the wood trim and fir floors most of these homes were built around. None of these trends require abandoning square tile. Most of them are built on it.

What Are the Outdated Tile Colors?

Cool grey and greige, the specific shade that showed up on every spec-home flip between 2015 and 2020, is the one clients most often ask us to price out replacing. Bright white subway with stark white grout is close behind it. Both read as “the last renovation before this one” the moment a buyer walks through.

Warm neutrals are replacing them: cream, soft terracotta, warm greige with a hint of tan instead of blue undertone. The shift is subtle in photos and obvious in person, and it is the single fastest way to make an older tile job look current without touching the tile itself.

Layouts That Make Square Tile Look Current Right Now

Checkerboard needs almost nothing else to look intentional, a black-and-white or two-tone square laid on the diagonal or straight, done. Stripe layouts, alternating square and rectangular bands, give a backsplash movement without going full pattern-on-pattern. Both are labour we quote a little higher than a straight running-bond install, more cuts, more layout planning before the first tile goes down, and clients tend to accept that once they see the sample board.

Mixing square with a second shape, hexagon in a niche, subway as a border, is the move we get asked for most on shower jobs specifically. It reads custom without the cost of a full mosaic install.

Where Square Tile Works Best in a Vancouver Island Home

Kitchen backsplashes, hands down, are where we install the most square right now. Bathroom shower walls come next, especially in older Island homes where the original tile is small-format and dated in colour rather than shape, so a bathroom tile installation that keeps a similar square format but swaps the palette respects the house without a full gut renovation.

Floors are the trickier call. Large-format square holds up well in a mudroom or kitchen where traffic is heavy, but a smaller bathroom floor can feel busy in square once grout lines multiply. That is a conversation worth having before ordering material, not after. A kitchen tile installation gives more room to experiment with layout since the floor plan is usually larger and more forgiving of pattern.

What It Actually Costs to Update a Square Tile Job

Regrouting a backsplash or shower wall is the cheapest fix in this entire article, and most homeowners have no idea it is even an option until we say it out loud on a quote call. Colour change on existing grout runs a fraction of a full retile, usually a single day’s labour for an average kitchen backsplash, and it does not touch cabinetry, countertops, or plumbing.

Full retile is a different conversation entirely. Tear-out, substrate check, new tile, new grout: that adds up fast once demolition and disposal enter the quote. Square format tile itself is not pricier than subway or rectangular to buy. The labour difference comes from layout complexity, not the shape on the box. Checkerboard and stripe patterns take longer to lay out and cut than a straight running bond, and that shows up in the estimate regardless of which shape is going down.

Quick Diagnostic: Is Your Square Tile Actually Dated, or Just the Grout?

Cool grey or stark white grout on a white or cream tile: dated, and the cheapest fix on this list. Tile itself cracked, chipped, or grout crumbling at the edges: that is a structural problem regrouting cannot solve. Straight running-bond layout in a kitchen with more traditional cabinetry: a layout mismatch, not a tile problem, and sometimes solvable by re-setting the same tile in a different pattern instead of buying new material. Colour undertone reads distinctly blue or grey against warmer countertops and trim: that clash is doing more damage to the room’s age than the tile shape ever could.

Run through those four before booking a full retile. More than half the calls we get about “outdated” square tile end with a regrout quote instead, and the client keeps the tile they already have.

Resale and What Buyers Actually Notice

Buyers walking through an open house rarely clock tile shape at all. What they clock is colour temperature and whether the kitchen or bathroom photographs like the last decade or the current one. A square-format backsplash in a warm neutral with a tone-matched grout reads current in listing photos. The exact same shape in cool grey with white grout reads like a 2017 flip, and agents on the Island have told us as much more than once walking a property before it lists.

That is worth knowing before spending renovation budget chasing shape trends that were never really the issue. Square tile is not what ages a listing photo. The colour choices sitting on top of it are.

Is It Worth Replacing Square Tile Before It Looks Dated?

Not on shape alone. If the tile itself is in good shape and the only complaint is “it feels old,” regrouting in a warmer tone often solves the problem for a fraction of a full retile. We have talked more than one client out of a full kitchen tear-out once they saw what a grout colour change did to the same exact tile.

Replace it if the grout is failing, the tile is cracking, or the layout itself, not the colour, is what is dating the room. A straight running-bond backsplash in a kitchen that otherwise leans traditional can look flat next to newer cabinetry no matter what colour the grout is. That is a layout problem, and layout is the one thing regrouting cannot fix.

The Bottom Line

Square tile is not the problem in a dated kitchen or bathroom. Colour and layout almost always are. Before tearing anything out, it is worth getting an opinion on whether a grout change or a layout swap gets the room where it needs to be, sometimes it does, sometimes a full retile really is the answer, and either way that is a conversation we would rather have before demolition than after.

Related Questions

• Are 12×12 Tiles Outdated?
• Can One Tile Be Replaced?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are Tile Backsplashes Still in Style?

Yes. Tile backsplashes aren’t going anywhere, whatever a “skip the backsplash entirely” post on a design account might suggest. What changed is the tile itself. Small white subway on a straight run used to be the default answer to every kitchen. Now it’s one option among several, and the ones getting requested most are bigger, more textured, and often running clear to the ceiling instead of stopping at eighteen inches above the counter.

The “still in style” question usually means something narrower: is my specific tile choice about to look dated. That’s a fair worry, and a different question from whether backsplashes as a category are fading out. They aren’t. What’s worth knowing is which current choices have staying power and which ones are already showing their age on kitchens we’ve walked into for other work.

What’s Trending in Kitchen Backsplash Tile Right Now

A handful of directions keep showing up on the jobs we’re quoting this year, and none of them are radical departures from what’s come before. Evolution, not reinvention.

Zellige and handmade-look glazed tile lead the list. Slight variation piece to piece, a little warp, an uneven glaze pool in the corner of each tile: it reads as custom in a way a perfectly uniform ceramic never does. Full-height slab-look porcelain is the second big one, running the tile from counter straight to the underside of the upper cabinets or all the way to the ceiling behind an open range wall. Large-format porcelain with heavy marble veining is close behind, giving the same visual weight as real stone slab without the sealing schedule.

Herringbone and chevron layouts keep gaining ground too, usually in a mid-size subway or plank shape rather than the tiny mosaic version. Deeper, moodier colour, forest green, ink blue, warm terracotta, is showing up more than it has in a decade of mostly white and gray kitchens. None of these are passing fads dressed up as trends. Each one solves a real problem: flatness, sameness, or the feeling that a kitchen looks like the one three doors down.

Is Subway Tile Still in Style, or Is It Played Out?

Still in style. Genuinely one of the least controversial answers in this whole article. Subway tile has been the default kitchen backsplash for over a century at this point, and it hasn’t gone anywhere close to dated the way, say, travertine tumbled stone from the early 2000s did.

What’s changed is the details around it. Straight white 3×6 subway with white grout in a straight running bond reads a little flat next to the other options homeowners are seeing now. Swap the grout to a warm gray or greige, stack the tiles vertically instead of the standard offset pattern, or size up to a longer plank format, and the same basic idea reads current instead of builder-grade. We still install more subway than any other single tile shape. Most of it just isn’t the exact version that was going in ten years ago.

Zellige and Handmade-Look Tile

The single biggest shift in backsplash requests over the last two years. Zellige, traditional Moroccan glazed clay tile, and the domestic handmade-look versions that copy its texture, keep showing up in nearly every kitchen consultation right now.

The appeal is the imperfection. Light hits each tile a little differently because no two are exactly flat or exactly the same glaze depth. It’s the opposite instinct from the uniform, machine-precise ceramic that dominated backsplashes for the past twenty years. Cost sits noticeably higher than standard ceramic, and installation takes longer since irregular tiles need more attention to keep grout lines from wandering. Worth it for a lot of the kitchens we’ve done this style on. Not something we’d talk a budget-conscious client into over standard subway.

Full-Height Backsplash: Counter to Ceiling

Standard backsplash stops a few inches above the counter. The full-height version runs the tile all the way up, either to the bottom of the upper cabinets or straight to the ceiling behind an open range wall with no upper cabinets at all.

This is the trend we get the most direct questions about, mostly because it changes the material math. More square footage means more tile, more cuts around outlets and windows, and a bigger material bill if the tile is anything beyond basic ceramic. It also means the tile choice matters a lot more, since there’s no plain painted wall breaking it up above the standard eighteen inches. A bold veined slab-look porcelain or a saturated colour that would feel busy on a short run can read as intentional and dramatic across a full wall. Kitchens with an open shelf layout or no upper cabinets over the range are where we see this requested most.

Hexagon, Penny Tile, and Pattern Accents

Shape does as much work as colour, and hexagon and penny tile keep coming up as the accent choice for homeowners who want texture without committing to a bold colour. Both work especially well mixed with a plainer field tile elsewhere, a hexagon feature strip behind the range with subway everywhere else, rather than covering the whole wall.

Small-format hexagon, roughly one to two inches across, is the version that reads most current right now. Larger hexagon, four inches and up, tends to look more like a bathroom floor tile that wandered into a kitchen. Penny round follows the same rule as hexagon: a strip or feature area holds up better long-term than a full wall of it, since the grout-to-tile ratio on penny round is high enough that a whole wall can start to read busy fast.

Patterned tile, encaustic-style prints, geometric repeats, is the smaller but real trend underneath these. It reads as more of a statement than shape alone, and it’s the one we’d steer a first-time homeowner away from unless they’re genuinely committed. A patterned floor is easy to live with because you’re not looking at it constantly at eye level while cooking. That same pattern on a backsplash sits in the direct sightline all day, every day.

What These Trends Actually Cost to Install

Trend and price don’t move together the way homeowners assume. Standard white subway is still close to the cheapest tile on the shelf, a few dollars a square foot for material, and it’s also one of the trend-forward choices right now once the grout colour and layout get updated. Zellige and true handmade tile sit at the other end, often twenty dollars a square foot and up before labour, and installation runs longer since irregular pieces need more attention to keep grout lines from wandering.

Full-height installs add cost mostly through square footage and cuts, not through the tile itself. A basic eighteen-inch backsplash behind a normal counter run is usually a one to two day job for us. Push that to full-height with outlet and window cuts factored in, and it stretches closer to three days, sometimes more if the layout includes herringbone or a mosaic sheet pattern that takes longer to set than a straight run.

Large-format stone-look porcelain lands in the middle, more per square foot than ceramic subway, less than imported zellige, with the advantage of covering more wall per tile and fewer grout lines overall. Worth asking about upfront if the full-height slab look is the goal but the zellige budget isn’t there. It gets close to the same visual weight for a lower total cost.

Are Tile Backsplashes Outdated?

No, and this is worth separating from the “should I skip a backsplash entirely” question that’s floating around design forums right now. Tile as a backsplash category isn’t outdated. Specific tile choices from a specific era can look dated, the same way a haircut or a car can. That’s a different problem with a different fix.

What actually looks dated on the renovation jobs we get called into: small glass mosaic tile from the mid-2000s, heavily beveled subway with thick grout lines, and travertine tumbled stone with the rough, pitted surface that was everywhere fifteen years ago. Those choices weren’t wrong when they went in. They’re just tied tightly enough to one specific decade that they now announce the age of the kitchen the second you walk in.

A useful pattern, once you notice it: the tile choices that date fastest are the ones tied to a single visual trick rather than a lasting material quality. Beveled edges, heavy iridescent glass, deep grooved texture, these were all “look what tile can do” statements more than material choices, and statements have a shelf life. Subway tile, hexagon, and large-format stone-look don’t have that problem because they’re built around a shape or texture that predates any current trend cycle by decades.

Backsplash Trends Worth Avoiding Right Now

A few current trends are worth a second thought before committing, not because they’re wrong today but because of how fast they tend to date once the moment passes.

Extremely small mosaic tile, anything under an inch, is the first. It reads busy fast and it’s already starting to feel tied to a specific look rather than a timeless one. Heavy, high-contrast pattern across the entire wall is the second. A pattern accent strip ages well. Covering the entire wall in bold pattern reads like a statement piece with an expiry date, closer to wallpaper than tile. Ultra-glossy, high-shine subway in an unusual colour, hot pink, bright turquoise, the kind of colour that photographs well and lives in a kitchen for one season of Instagram before the homeowner starts asking about a redo, is the third.

None of these are bad tile. They’re trend-forward choices that carry more risk of aging fast than a zellige, a large-format stone-look, or a well-executed subway variation does. Worth knowing that going in, especially on a kitchen where the backsplash isn’t getting swapped out again for a decade or more.

What About Skipping the Backsplash Entirely?

A minimalist “no backsplash” look has been getting attention online, usually a painted wall or a slab countertop with no separate tile at all behind the range. It works in specific kitchens, mostly ones with a range hood and enough clearance that splatter isn’t hitting a bare painted wall constantly.

It’s a real trend, not a fringe one. That said, it’s a narrower fit than the coverage suggests. Most working kitchens, the ones where someone’s actually cooking daily rather than styling for photos, still need something wipeable behind the stove and sink. Tile remains the practical answer for that even in kitchens that go bare everywhere else along the counter run.

Choosing Tile That Won’t Look Dated in Five Years

A handful of choices hold up better than others across the installs we’ve done. Neutral or muted colour with visual interest coming from texture or shape instead of a bold saturated hue is one. Zellige, large-format stone-look, and well-executed subway variations all fit this. Classic laying patterns, straight, offset, herringbone, over anything overly novel is another. Herringbone has been around for generations and isn’t going anywhere. A trendy chevron variation from a specific design blog three years ago might not age the same way.

Quality material and installation matter more here than most homeowners expect. A well-set porcelain or ceramic tile with tight, even grout lines looks current for years past a rushed job with wandering lines and uneven spacing, regardless of how trendy the tile itself is. We’ve re-tiled kitchens where the original tile choice was fine, current even, but the install quality was what actually dated the room.

The test we actually use on a walkthrough: would this tile still look right in a kitchen photo from ten years ago, and will it still look right in one ten years from now. Zellige passes. So does most subway, most large-format stone-look, most classic pattern work. A hyper-specific colour trend or an ultra-fine mosaic is a harder pass, not impossible, just riskier. Send us the details and we’ll tell you whether it’s worth doing at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of backsplash is trending right now?

Zellige and handmade-look tile top the list, followed closely by full-height slab-look porcelain and large-format stone-veined tile. Herringbone and chevron layouts in mid-size subway are close behind, along with a shift toward deeper, moodier colour after a decade of mostly white and gray kitchens.

What is the trend in kitchen tile backsplash in 2026?

Texture and imperfection over uniformity. Handmade-look glazed tile, larger-format stone-veined porcelain, and full-height installs running counter to ceiling are the three directions showing up most in current quotes. Standard small white subway hasn’t disappeared, but it’s competing against a wider range of textured and full-height options than it was five years ago.

Are tile backsplashes outdated?

No. Tile as a backsplash category is not outdated, though specific choices from a specific decade can look it. Small glass mosaic, heavy bevel subway with thick grout, and tumbled travertine are the three that flag a kitchen’s age fastest on the renovation jobs we see. The category itself remains the practical, wipeable answer behind a stove and sink.

What backsplash to avoid?

Ultra-small mosaic under an inch, a full wall of heavy bold pattern, and glossy tile in a saturated novelty colour are the three riskiest right now. None are wrong choices outright. All three tend to date faster than a neutral zellige, large-format stone-look, or classic subway variation, which matters more on a backsplash that isn’t getting redone again for a decade.

Trying to land on a tile that fits the kitchen and holds up past the current trend cycle? That’s most of what a backsplash tile installation consultation with us actually covers. Bring a few photos of what caught your eye and we’ll tell you straight whether it’s a five-year tile or a five-season one, along with the rest of what goes into a kitchen tile project done right.

Related Questions

• Are Glass Subway Tiles Out of Style?
• Are Square Tiles Back in Style?
• Are Tile Floors Out of Style?
• Are Zellige Tiles Going Out of Style?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

What Colour Floor Tiles for a White Kitchen?

White cabinets forgive almost any floor colour. That’s the short version. Grey, warm wood-look, black and white, even a bold patterned tile in an entry or pantry off the kitchen, all of it works against a white cabinet run. The longer answer is the one that actually matters once a client is standing in a Nanaimo kitchen with three sample boxes open on the counter, trying to picture the room in six months instead of under the showroom lights right now.

We install a lot of white kitchens across Central Vancouver Island, and the floor colour question comes up on nearly every one of them. Not because white cabinets are hard to match. Because they’re easy to match, which somehow makes the decision harder. Endless options and no obvious wrong answer, and people freeze.

Should Kitchen Floor Tiles Be Dark or Light?

Depends what the kitchen needs to do. Light floors, think cream, pale grey, or a soft white-on-white, bounce whatever daylight the room gets and make a smaller kitchen read bigger. Older Nanaimo character homes with a tighter galley kitchen benefit the most from this, especially where a north-facing window keeps natural light limited most of the year.

Dark floors do the opposite job well. Charcoal, espresso wood-look, near-black porcelain: these ground an all-white kitchen and stop it from feeling clinical. Newer Campbell River builds with big windows and an open-concept layout can carry the contrast without the room feeling closed in, since there’s enough natural light coming from elsewhere to balance it.

Practical trade-off nobody mentions in the showroom: light floors show every dropped coffee ground and dog hair by mid-afternoon. Dark floors show dust and water spots the second the light hits at an angle. Neither one is low-maintenance. They’re just differently visible, and which one bothers a specific household more is worth a real conversation before the tile gets ordered.

Warm Wood-Look Floors With White Cabinets

Wood-look porcelain plank has been the single most requested floor tiles for white kitchens on our jobs the past two years, outpacing every stone-look option combined. Oak and walnut tones, in their warmer variations, soften the white-on-white starkness that a purely cool palette can slide into, and porcelain plank gets the visual warmth without the water sensitivity real hardwood carries in a kitchen.

Undertone is where this goes wrong most often. A warm honey oak plank next to cool-toned white cabinets, the kind with a slight blue or grey cast rather than a true cream white, can clash in a way that photographs fine but reads off in person. Bringing a cabinet door sample to the tile showroom, or a tile sample home to sit against the cabinets, catches this before the order goes in rather than after.

Grey Floors: The Middle Ground Most Kitchens Land On

Grey is where most undecided clients end up, and for good reason. Cool grey, warm greige, charcoal, light dove grey: the range covers almost every lighting condition and cabinet undertone without forcing a commitment either direction. It pairs with black hardware, brass hardware, warm wood accents, and cool marble countertops equally well, which explains why it’s stayed the default recommendation for three straight years of kitchen quotes.

Mid-tone grey specifically hides the daily grit better than either extreme. Not so dark that water spots show, not so light that every crumb stands out. For a household with kids or a dog running through the kitchen daily, that middle ground earns its reputation.

Small Kitchens and High-Traffic Households

Square footage changes the recommendation more than most clients expect going in. A tight galley kitchen in an older Parksville home reads noticeably bigger with a light, low-contrast floor running wall to wall, especially when that same tile continues into an adjoining hallway or dining nook without a threshold break. Break that continuity with a bold contrast floor in a small space and the room visually shrinks, even though the actual square footage hasn’t changed at all.

Households with kids, dogs, or both need a different answer than the size question alone would give. Textured matte porcelain in a mid-tone grey hides tracked-in dirt and pet hair better than either a glossy light floor or a flat dark one, and it’s the single floor we get asked to quote most often for busy family kitchens. A shiny white tile might photograph beautifully for the listing photos. Six months of daily use tells a different story, and clients who skip this conversation are usually the ones calling about a re-grout within two years.

Natural Stone and Marble-Look Tile

Marble-look porcelain gives the veined, high-end look without the sealing and staining risk actual marble carries in a kitchen, where spilled wine or lemon juice can etch a real stone surface permanently. Large-format marble-look tile with minimal grout lines reads especially clean against white shaker cabinets.

Real limestone and travertine still get requested, usually by clients who’ve seen it in a renovation photo and want the texture and colour variation a printed porcelain can’t fully replicate. Fair enough on the look. Worth knowing going in that natural stone needs sealing on a schedule, something a lot of clients skip after year two and then call us about when the grout starts staining.

Black and White, and Patterned Floors

Checkerboard and encaustic-pattern tile have come back hard over the past couple of renovation cycles, usually in a smaller dose than a full kitchen floor. A patterned tile entry that transitions into a plain white or grey kitchen floor gives the visual interest without the maintenance and cost of patterning an entire large kitchen floor.

Straight black and white, whether that’s a bold checkerboard or simple two-tone geometric, pairs cleanly with all-white cabinetry and reads more classic than trendy. It’s a commitment though. Once a patterned floor is in, swapping cabinet colour down the road gets a lot more constrained than it would be with a neutral floor underneath.

Kitchen Floor Tile Trends Heading Into 2026

Large-format porcelain plank, 12×24 and bigger, keeps taking share from smaller-format tile on our quotes. Fewer grout lines, a cleaner look, and it reads more current in a white kitchen than the 12×12 layout that dominated a decade ago.

Matte and honed finishes over high-gloss. Slip resistance is part of it, especially for kitchens that open onto an entry or mudroom, but the softer look also photographs better and shows less of the day-to-day scuffing that a polished finish highlights under kitchen lighting.

Warm neutrals are edging out the pure cool-grey palette that dominated the mid-2020s. Griege, warm taupe, and honey-toned wood-look are the requests we’re fielding more often now against white cabinets, a shift away from the stark grey-and-white kitchens that felt fresh five years ago and now read a little dated in real estate listings.

Grout Colour: The Decision Every Guide Skips

Nobody talks about grout until it’s time to pick it, and by then the tile order is already placed. Light grout on a light floor keeps the whole surface reading as one continuous plane, which suits a small kitchen aiming for that open, uninterrupted look. Grey or charcoal grout on the same light tile pulls the grid forward instead, turning the layout into a visible pattern rather than a background.

Darker grout hides dirt better, full stop. That’s the trade every client needs to hear before deciding, because it cuts against the light-floor-feels-bigger logic from earlier in this article. A pale grout on a pale floor looks stunning on install day and shows every grout line’s dirt line within a year unless it’s sealed and maintained on a real schedule. Grey grout on a light floor splits the difference and it’s what we recommend more often than either extreme.

Check the Colour Under Your Own Kitchen Light

Showroom lighting is bright, even, and nothing like a real kitchen at 6pm with the overheads on and the window gone dark. Take the sample home. Set it on the actual floor, under the actual light, morning and evening both, before signing off on an order. We’ve had more than one client change their pick after living with a sample for a week, and it’s a lot cheaper to change a mind than to change a floor.

Cabinet undertone matters here too. White that looks neutral under LED pot lights can read slightly warm or slightly cool under a different bulb temperature, and that shift changes how a grey or wood-look floor reads against it. Ten minutes checking at home saves a callback nobody wants to make. A full floor tile installation quote from us usually includes a sample walkthrough for exactly this reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

What color floor tiles for a white kitchen?

Grey and warm wood-look porcelain plank cover the majority of what we install against white cabinets. Dark charcoal and marble-look come next, followed by black and white patterned tile for clients wanting a stronger statement. No single wrong answer here, though undertone matching against the specific white cabinet used narrows the field fast.

What color floors look good with a white kitchen?

Almost everything. That range is the whole point of choosing white cabinets in the first place. Cool grey and warm wood-look are the two most requested. Black and white patterned tile and marble-look porcelain follow behind those for clients wanting more visual interest than a plain neutral floor.

What are the trends for kitchen floor tile in 2026?

Large-format porcelain plank, matte and honed finishes over high-gloss, and warm neutrals pulling share away from the cool-grey palette that dominated a few years back. Patterned tile in an entry or pantry transition, rather than across a full kitchen floor, is the other pattern showing up on more of our quotes.

Should kitchen floor tiles be dark or light?

Light floors open up a smaller or dim kitchen and hide water spots worse. Dark floors ground a bright, open kitchen and hide crumbs and dust worse. Neither is objectively lower maintenance, they just show different kinds of daily mess, so the household’s actual habits matter more than the trend of the year.

Central Vancouver Island’s mix of older character homes and newer open-concept builds means the same white kitchen question gets a different answer from one job to the next, Nanaimo through Campbell River. Bringing a cabinet sample and a real sense of the room’s daily light to the first conversation saves a redo neither side wants later.

Related Questions

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Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are 12×12 Tiles Outdated?

Not the size. The look. A 12×12 in a warm matte neutral reads current in 2026. The same 12×12 in glossy beige, laid straight with narrow grout lines, is the floor every buyer’s agent calls “original” and every homeowner is quietly embarrassed by. Designers pile on the 12×12 dimension because it’s shorthand for an era, not because the square foot itself expired.

Are 12×12 Tiles Out of Style?

The dimension isn’t the offender. Beige porcelain in a builder-grade satin finish, laid in a plain grid, is the actual target of every “outdated tile” article on the internet right now. Swap the colour, change the finish to matte, run it on a diagonal or in a herringbone pattern, and the same 12×12 tile stops reading dated at all. We get called into 1990s and 2000s builds constantly, and the complaint is never “the tile is too small.” It’s “the tile is beige.”

Is 12×12 Considered a Large Format Tile?

No. Large format starts around 15 inches on the long edge, and most manufacturers and installers draw the real line at 12×24 rectangular or 16×16 square and up. A 12×12 sits squarely in the standard-format bracket, the size tile has shipped in since the 1980s. That matters for the trend conversation because “large format is having a moment” gets misheard as “small format is dead.” It isn’t dead. It’s just not what’s on the showroom floor display right now.

What Size Floor Tile Is Timeless?

There isn’t one number. Subway tile at 3×6 has outlasted every size trend since the New York subway system it’s named after. Hexagon tile in almost any dimension reads classic because the shape does the work, not the size. What actually ages a tile choice is proportion to the room and consistency of finish, not whether it clears some inch threshold. A 12×12 in a small bathroom, set with tight consistent grout lines, looks more intentional than an oversized tile crammed into a space too small to show it off.

What’s Actually Driving the Shift Away from 12×12

Fewer grout lines, mostly. A 12×24 floor has half the seams of a 12×12 laid the same square footage, and fewer seams reads as cleaner and more expensive to most homeowners, whether or not it actually is. Porcelain manufacturing has also caught up: large-format slabs that cost a premium a decade ago are close to standard-size pricing now, so there’s less reason to default small. Neither of those is a durability argument. They’re a look-and-cost argument, and the look shifts back and forth every decade or two the same way it always has.

Photography plays a role too, more than people give it credit for. A large-format floor shot on a wide lens for a listing or a design account reads as one continuous surface. Same camera angle on a 12×12 grid shows every seam instead. Buyers who’ve scrolled a thousand renovation photos start associating the grid pattern itself with “not renovated yet,” even on a floor that’s perfectly sound underneath it.

12×12 vs 12×24: What Actually Changes on Install Day

Labour, mostly, and it cuts both ways. More tiles per square foot means more cuts, more spacing, more time setting each piece: a 12×12 floor takes longer to lay than the equivalent area in 12×24. But large-format tile brings its own cost. Flatter substrate is non-negotiable, lippage shows immediately on a bigger surface, and a two-person lift is standard past a certain size because one installer can’t set a heavy porcelain slab without risking a crack or an uneven bed. Waste factor differs too. Smaller tile wastes less on an irregular room because the offcuts are easier to reuse elsewhere in the layout, where a large-format offcut usually just goes in the bin.

None of that makes one size objectively better. It changes the quote, and it changes what the finished floor forgives. A slightly out-of-level subfloor is far less visible under 12×12 than under 12×24, which is one more reason the “just go bigger” advice doesn’t fit every house.

When 12×12 Still Makes Sense

Small bathrooms and powder rooms first. A large-format tile in a 5×7 room gets awkward fast, with every cut edge landing somewhere visible. Pattern work is the second case: herringbone, basketweave, and most mosaic layouts need a smaller module to read correctly, and a lot of the “timeless” patterns designers point to are built from tile in the 3×6 to 12×12 range, not slabs. Budget renovations and matching an existing floor round out the list.

Older or uneven subfloors are the case nobody mentions in the trend articles. A house with some settling, a slightly wavy joist run, or a substrate that isn’t dead flat is a bad candidate for large-format porcelain no matter how current it looks in the showroom. We’d rather set a homeowner up with 12×12 that actually lies flat and stays flat than push a bigger tile onto a floor that’s going to fight it. Ripping out a functional 12×12 floor purely to chase a size trend is a decision we’d talk a homeowner out of more often than into.

What Are the Trends in Tile for 2026

Large format porcelain, matte and textured finishes over anything glossy, warm neutrals and greiges replacing flat beige, and natural stone look tile standing in for real marble at a fraction of the maintenance. Curved and scalloped edge tiles are showing up more in kitchens and powder rooms too, a callback to older architectural tile that’s reading fresh again. None of that is a size rule. It’s a colour, finish, and shape shift, and it’s the same handful of moves every design cycle makes with different specifics.

Should You Replace 12×12 Tile Just Because It’s “Dated”?

Only if something else is already pushing you there. A 12×12 floor in good shape, laid flat with intact grout, is not costing you anything by existing. What moves the needle at resale is condition and colour more than dimension: a clean beige floor with fresh grout shows better than a large-format floor with cracked corners and blown-out lippage. If you’re already replacing flooring for water damage, cracking, or a full renovation, that’s the moment to reconsider size and finish together. Tearing out sound tile purely because an article called the size outdated is money spent on a problem that wasn’t really there.

There’s a cheaper middle option too, and it gets skipped over constantly. Regrouting a 12×12 floor in a darker, tighter-matched grout colour changes how the whole grid reads, often for a few hundred dollars instead of a full tear-out. Same tile, same size, and the “dated grid” complaint quietly disappears because the eye stops catching every seam. We’ve talked more than one homeowner out of a full re-tile with nothing more than that.

What a 12×12 Floor Signals to Buyers

Less than most sellers assume. Buyers touring a house clock finish and cleanliness first, tile dimension a distant third if they notice it at all. An agent might mention “original tile” as shorthand for the whole kitchen or bath not being touched, but that’s a condition read, not a size complaint. A 12×12 floor with fresh grout, no cracked corners, and a colour that isn’t fighting the rest of the room rarely costs a sale on its own. What actually spooks buyers is visible damage: hollow tiles, cracked grout lines, water staining near a tub or toilet. Fix those and the size stops mattering to almost everyone walking through.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are 12×12 tiles out of style?

The size itself, no. Beige-and-gloss is the real culprit, and it’s the combination most commonly laid in 12×12 through the 1990s and 2000s. Same tile in a matte neutral or set in a pattern reads current.

What are the trends in tiles in 2026?

Large-format porcelain, matte and textured finishes, warm neutrals over flat beige, and natural stone look tile. Curved-edge tile is picking up in kitchens and powder rooms too.

What size floor tile is timeless?

No single size. Subway tile, hexagon tile, and classic patterned layouts hold up regardless of dimension because the shape and proportion do the work, not the inch count.

Is 12×12 considered a large format tile?

No. Large format starts around 15 inches and up, with 12×24 or 16×16 as the common floor. 12×12 is standard format.

When to Bring in a Pro

Sound 12×12 tile that’s just out of fashion isn’t a job for us, it’s a job for paint on the walls and new fixtures around it. Cracked tile, failing grout, or a full room reno where you want to weigh size and finish together is where a proper consult pays off. We handle both ends of that conversation on every floor tile installation we quote, including whether large-format porcelain actually fits the room you’re putting it in. If there’s anything unusual going on underneath the room you’re planning, talk to us before you buy.

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Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Can I Paint Travertine Tile?

Yes. Can travertine tile be painted? Also yes, and it takes paint better than most homeowners expect once the surface gets properly prepped. The catch isn’t whether paint sticks. It’s what happens to the stone underneath once it does. Porous, pitted, naturally uneven: those are the exact qualities that make travertine travertine. Paint changes the relationship with all three, permanently, once the first coat cures.

We get this question on Tuscan-era kitchens and primary baths across the Island constantly, usually from someone who inherited a floor they didn’t choose. Here’s what actually holds up, what still looks like stone when it’s done, and where we’d tell a client to stop and call us instead.

Yes, But It’s a One-Way Door

Travertine can be painted, stained, or whitewashed. What can’t happen afterward is going back. Strip paint off travertine and the stone underneath comes up patchy, dulled, and often etched from whatever stripper got used to remove it. Every guide that skips this detail is doing a homeowner a disservice. Decide on the finished look before the first coat goes on, not after.

Maintenance changes too, once paint is involved. A sealed, unpainted travertine floor gets resealed every year or two and otherwise looks after itself. Painted travertine needs touch-ups wherever traffic or moisture wears through, and that upkeep never really stops.

What Has to Happen Before Any Paint Goes On

Skip prep and the paint fails within a season, full stop. Three steps, in order: clean, fill, prime.

Clean first, with a mild detergent, no vinegar or anything acidic near travertine ever, since it etches the stone the same way it etches marble. Fill the pits next. Travertine ships full of small natural holes, and every one left open shows through as a shadow once paint goes on. A stone filler or epoxy handles the large ones; the tiny surface pitting can stay if the look is going for a whitewash rather than a solid finish. Prime last, with a stone-grade or masonry primer, not the all-purpose stuff off the shelf. Skip the primer and expect to fight peeling within a year, especially anywhere near a shower or a sink splash zone.

How Do You Paint Travertine Tile So It Still Looks Like Travertine?

Two techniques actually pull this off, and they solve different problems.

Whitewashing skips the primer on purpose. A translucent or iridescent acrylic goes on thin, over clean unfilled stone, so the natural variation in tone still shows through the colour. It’s the fastest of the two, often finished in an afternoon, and it works best on backsplashes and accent walls where a bit of the original travertine character is the whole point.

Stenciling goes the opposite direction: fill every pit first, prime, lay down a solid base coat, then run a pattern stencil over top in a second colour to mimic grout lines or a tile motif. It’s a full-day project minimum and it hides the stone completely rather than working with it, which suits a dated floor nobody wants to look like travertine anymore. Pick based on what’s underneath, not which tutorial looks easier.

What Paint Actually Holds Up on Travertine

Epoxy paint for floors and anywhere wet, since nothing else on this list handles moisture and foot traffic the same way. Acrylic latex for backsplashes and walls, easier to apply, forgiving of a second coat weeks later. Chalk paint for a distressed or matte look, but only with a clear sealant over top, since chalk paint alone wears through fast on anything people actually touch.

Whatever gets chosen, plan on more coats than a drywall job. Travertine drinks paint. Two coats on primed stone is normal where one would finish a wall.

Is Travertine Out of Style in 2026?

Depends on which travertine. The honey-toned, heavily filled, high-gloss slabs that defined 2000s Tuscan kitchens read dated now, and that’s the look most paint questions are actually trying to escape. Matte, unfilled, tumbled travertine in cooler tones has come back around and shows up in current builds without anyone calling it retro.

Worth knowing before committing to paint: sometimes the tile isn’t the problem. A warm-white or soft grey wall colour next to the same travertine floor can shift the whole room without touching a single tile. We’ve walked clients back from a paint job more than once by suggesting the walls move instead of the floor.

What Should You Not Use on Travertine Tile?

Vinegar, bleach, and anything acidic top the list, painted or not. They etch the stone’s surface on contact and leave dull patches no amount of paint hides well. Skip glossy oil-based paint without a primer coat underneath; it beads on porous stone instead of bonding. And skip an orbital sander on polished travertine trying to rough it up for paint. A light hand-sand with fine-grit paper does the job without gouging a surface that’s already soft compared to porcelain or granite.

What Are the Negatives of Travertine Tile?

Porosity is the big one: without sealing, travertine stains from wine, oil, and standing water, paint or no paint. It’s softer than porcelain, so it chips and scratches more easily under furniture legs and dropped pans. Cold underfoot in an unheated bathroom, more upkeep than ceramic over the life of the floor, and a resale crowd that’s genuinely split on the look. None of that rules travertine out. It just means going in with eyes open about what the material asks for.

Can Travertine Tile Be Lightened?

Paint isn’t the only route, and it’s not always the best one. Honing takes a thin layer off the surface mechanically, removing the darker filled resin and years of grime along with it, and it’s reversible in a way paint never is: the stone underneath is still stone, just refinished rather than covered. It costs more than a weekend paint job and needs a pro with the right equipment, but it’s worth pricing out before committing to something permanent, especially on a floor that’s structurally in good shape and just dated in tone.

Should You Paint It or Call a Pro?

Paint makes sense on a rental, a tight budget, or a backsplash someone wants to change again in a few years. It doesn’t make sense on a floor that’s otherwise in solid shape, where honing or a straight retile gets a better result for not much more money over the long run. We’ll look at a floor and give a client a straight read on which side of that line they’re on. A painted floor that fails in eighteen months costs more than doing it right the first time would have.

Not sure which side of that line your travertine is on? A travertine tile installation consult settles it fast, whether that means refinishing what’s there or starting fresh.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I change the colour of travertine tile?

Yes, through paint, stain, or professional honing. Paint and stain sit on top of the stone and are permanent once applied; honing removes a thin layer and is closer to a true refinish.

How do you paint travertine tile so it still looks like travertine?

Whitewash it with a thin, translucent coat over unfilled stone, or fill the pits, prime, and stencil a pattern on top. Whitewashing keeps more of the original texture; stenciling covers it completely.

Is travertine out of style in 2026?

Glossy, heavily filled Tuscan-era travertine reads dated. Matte, tumbled, unfilled travertine in cooler tones is back in current builds. The finish matters more than the material.

What should you not use on travertine tile?

Vinegar, bleach, and other acidic cleaners etch it. Oil-based paint without a primer beads instead of bonding. An orbital sander gouges the soft surface where a light hand-sand would do.

What are the negatives of travertine tile?

Porous and stain-prone without regular sealing, softer than porcelain so it chips more easily, cold underfoot, and more upkeep over the life of the floor.

Can travertine tile be lightened?

Yes, by whitewashing, staining lighter, or having it professionally honed. Honing is reversible in a way paint isn’t, since it refinishes the stone instead of coating it.

Related Questions

• Can I Paint Tile Grout?
• How to Remove Paint from Painted Tiles?
• Can I Spray Paint Tiles?
• How to Clean Travertine Tiles Without Ruining the Stone?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are Tile Floors Out of Style? What’s Dated and What’s Not in 2026

No. Tile floors aren’t going anywhere. What’s aging out fast is one narrow slice of the category: cool gray tones, high-gloss finishes, and busy patterned tile crammed into a small room. Rip out that combination and the floor underneath is usually fine. That distinction gets lost in a lot of the “is tile out of style” content circulating right now, and it’s worth sorting out before anyone starts pricing a full tear-out.

We get this question on a fair number of Nanaimo and Parksville quotes, usually from someone standing in a kitchen they bought secondhand and don’t quite love. The floor is almost never the actual problem. The colour on top of it is.

What’s Actually Going Out of Style Isn’t Tile Itself

Cool gray palettes. Glossy finishes. Skinny, packed-tight grout lines. Small busy patterns crowding a floor that needed something calmer. Four things, and none of them are the material. They’re colour and finish choices layered on top of a product that’s been used on floors for thousands of years and isn’t leaving anytime soon.

A homeowner with a gray porcelain floor from 2016 isn’t looking at outdated tile. They’re looking at an outdated palette sitting on a floor that’s structurally fine. That’s the single most common mix-up we run into on quotes.

What Flooring Is Outdated Right Now?

Cool gray-on-gray, whether it’s tile, wood-look plank, or laminate, tops most designers’ lists this year. It had a strong decade-long run through builder-grade new construction and it’s finally falling flat. High-gloss tile with a skinny, tightly packed grout line is the second offender, especially in wood-look formats that were trying too hard to pass as real wood.

Small iridescent glass mosaic sheets in cool blue or gray tones read dated fast too, the kind that showed up on every builder-grade kitchen floor and shower niche a decade ago. And busy patterned tile crammed into a room too small to carry it competes with everything else in the space instead of anchoring it.

Painted floorboards and wall-to-wall carpet in high-traffic rooms are on the same outdated list, though those aren’t tile problems. Worth mentioning since the question usually comes up alongside tile in the same breath.

What Are the Outdated Tile Colors?

Cool gray and blue-gray lead the list, the exact tones that dominated new-build kitchens and bathrooms from roughly 2015 through 2020. Stark, cold white paired with equally stark white grout is close behind. Harsh black-and-white checkerboard in high-gloss reads dated too, though the same pattern in a matte finish still holds up fine.

Warm neutrals have taken over. Cream, warm greige, soft terracotta, and honey tones are what’s actually getting specified on jobs we quote today. Grout has followed the same shift: stark white grout against cool gray tile is a 2015-era signature, while a warm biscuit or soft greige grout against the same tile shape reads current.

Why Tile Itself Isn’t Going Anywhere

Water resistance is the real reason. Vancouver Island winters mean mud, rain, and wet boots tracked across an entryway for six months of the year, and tile handles that in a way carpet and most wood-look products never will. Wipes clean, doesn’t stain, doesn’t warp if a boot sits on it wet overnight. We’ve pulled up plenty of laminate and engineered hardwood that buckled from moisture within a few seasons; the tile underneath a lot of those same houses is decades old and still flat.

Resale appraisers treat tile the same way they did twenty years ago too. Kitchens and bathrooms with tile floors consistently price better than the same rooms in vinyl or laminate, colour trends aside. That’s a durability signal buyers read on inspection day, not a style statement.

What Floor Tile Never Goes Out of Style?

Subway and rectangular shapes hold up regardless of colour cycles, because the shape itself reads as background rather than statement. Same goes for natural stone and marble-look porcelain, terracotta, hexagon, and handmade-look ceramic finishes like zellige. None of those five have gone out of style in the decades they’ve been in circulation, and none show signs of starting now.

Large-format tile belongs on that list too, even though it’s newer. Fewer grout lines, a cleaner look, and from an installation side it means fewer joints that need sealing and maintaining over the years. That’s a practical win as much as a style one.

What connects all six: they’re shapes and materials, not colour trends stacked on top of them. A warm-toned hexagon floor and a cool-toned hexagon floor age completely differently, even though the shape underneath is identical.

Floor Tile Trends for 2026

Warm tones over cool ones, across every material category. That shift is the single biggest theme running through this year’s flooring conversations, and it shows up in tile, wood-look plank, and even grout colour choices.

Matte finishes are replacing glossy across the board. Less glare, better grip underfoot, and a softer look that doesn’t scream “new build.” Handmade and artisan-style ceramic, zellige and its lookalikes especially, is having a real moment, irregular surface texture and slight tile-to-tile colour variation instead of the uniform glossy look that’s falling out of favor.

Large-format tile keeps growing. Terrazzo is back too, reinvented with bigger, more dramatic chips than the small-fleck version from decades ago. And seamless indoor-outdoor tile runs, the same material continuing from a kitchen through a patio door, are showing up on more renovation quotes than they were even three years back.

What’s Actually Trending Right Now

Warm neutral palettes. Large-format tile with minimal grout. Handmade or textured finishes over anything glossy. Reinvented terrazzo. That’s the short list, and most of it costs about the same as what it’s replacing.

The Wood-Look Tile Debate

This is where the sources contradict each other, and both sides have a point. The early wood-look porcelain from the 2000s and early 2010s genuinely looks fake up close: repeating patterns every few planks, uniform colour with no grain variation, and a glossy surface real wood never has. That version is dated and it’s not coming back.

The current generation is a different product. HD inkjet printing, synchronized surface texture that actually matches the printed grain, and rectified edges for tighter grout lines. We install this on jobs where the client wants the wood look with none of the maintenance, and it doesn’t read as fake the way the older stuff did.

Where we land on it: the shape and format matter more than the fact that it’s imitating wood. Wide planks, warm tones, matte finish, staggered layout with no repeating pattern visible within a few feet. Skip the narrow glossy planks with an obvious four-tile repeat and it holds up fine. Luxury vinyl plank has taken over a chunk of this market too, mostly because it’s softer underfoot and faster to install, but it doesn’t hold up to water and heavy traffic the way porcelain does.

Cost is part of that decision too. Wood-look porcelain runs higher than LVP on material and labour both, since it needs a wet saw and a slower install pace than a click-lock floating floor. Worth the difference in a mudroom, an entryway, or anywhere near an exterior door on this coast. Harder to justify in a bedroom where nothing wet ever touches the floor.

How to Update an Outdated Tile Floor Without Ripping It Out

Regrouting is the first thing we suggest, and it’s the cheapest fix by a wide margin. Swapping stark white grout for a warm greige or biscuit tone changes how the whole floor reads without touching a single tile. A full regrout on a standard bathroom or kitchen floor runs a fraction of what a tear-out and replacement costs.

Area rugs and runners do more work than people expect. A busy patterned tile floor that felt overwhelming five years ago calms right down under a large neutral rug, and it protects the grout lines from wear at the same time.

Refinishing or resealing a matte finish over a glossy tile isn’t always possible depending on the material, but on natural stone and some porcelain it is, and it’s worth asking about before assuming a full replacement is the only option. Warm-toned paint on adjacent walls and cabinetry does the rest, since a cool gray floor reads far less dated once everything around it shifts warm.

Transition strips and baseboard are the detail most homeowners skip. A polished chrome transition strip against a warm-toned room stands out for the wrong reason, and swapping it for matte black or brushed brass closes the gap between an old floor and a refreshed room for not much money. Same logic on baseboard, since bright white trim against a cool gray floor reinforces exactly the palette that’s reading dated in the first place.

Pros and Cons of Keeping an Older Tile Floor

In favour of keeping it: the labour cost of a full tear-out and replacement is almost always higher than the material cost of new tile, sometimes by a wide margin, because demo, disposal, and subfloor repair all get billed before a single new tile goes down. A sound floor in an unpopular colour is a cosmetic problem, and cosmetic problems have cheap fixes.

Against keeping it: if the grout is failing, if tiles are cracked or loose, or if there’s water damage underneath from a slow leak nobody caught for years, no amount of regrouting or rug placement fixes a structural problem. That’s a full replacement conversation, and it’s worth a proper inspection before committing either way.

Should You Replace a Dated Tile Floor Before Selling?

Usually not, and this is the question we get most from homeowners prepping a Nanaimo or Parksville listing. If the tile itself is in good condition, structurally sound with no cracked or loose pieces, a regrout and a few staging choices almost always beats a full replacement on return.

Where we do recommend replacement before listing: cracked or missing tiles, visible water damage around a tub or shower, or a pattern so busy it photographs badly for listing photos. Those are functional and marketing problems, not style ones, and they’re worth fixing regardless of what year it is. Still stuck on which option suits your place? Ask us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What flooring is outdated?

Cool gray-on-gray, high-gloss tile with skinny grout lines, small iridescent glass mosaic in cool tones, and busy patterned tile in a room too small for it. Painted floorboards and wall-to-wall carpet in high-traffic rooms round out the list, though those aren’t tile.

What are the floor tile trends for 2026?

Warm neutral tones replacing cool gray. Large-format tile with minimal grout. Matte finishes over glossy. Handmade-look ceramic like zellige. Reinvented terrazzo with bigger chips. Seamless indoor-outdoor runs from kitchen to patio.

What floor tile never goes out of style?

Subway and rectangular shapes, natural stone and marble-look porcelain, terracotta, hexagon, handmade-look ceramic, and large-format tile. All six read as material and shape choices rather than colour trends, which is why they hold up across decades.

What are the outdated tile colors?

Cool gray and blue-gray lead the list, followed by stark cold white paired with stark white grout. Warm cream, greige, terracotta, and honey tones have replaced them on current jobs.

Related Questions

• Are Glass Subway Tiles Out of Style?
• Are Zellige Tiles Going Out of Style?
• Are Kitchen Tiles Out of Fashion?
• How to Regrout Shower Tiles?
• Are Square Tiles Back in Style?
• Are Tile Backsplashes Still in Style?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are Subway Tiles Timeless?

Yes. Over a century of continuous use across kitchens, bathrooms, and commercial spaces backs that up, and nothing in the current run of quotes we’re writing suggests that’s slowing down. What’s shifted is the version people ask for. Standard white 3×6 in a straight offset used to be the whole conversation. Now it’s one option among a handful, next to elongated formats, colour, and pattern choices that didn’t exist as mainstream requests a decade ago.

The shape is what makes it timeless, not any one size or finish. A rectangle laid roughly twice as wide as it is tall, set in an offset pattern. That geometry reads as clean and intentional in almost any kitchen or bathroom, which is the actual reason it keeps surviving one design cycle after another.

Where the Shape Actually Came From

New York City, 1904. Architects Heins and La Farge needed a wall surface for the first underground subway stations, something that would feel clean and bright to riders nervous about the whole idea of going underground. White glazed ceramic, laid in that now-familiar offset, bounced what light there was and wiped down easily after decades of steam trains had left London and Paris stations filthy by comparison.

Germ theory was gaining ground at the same moment. A smooth, non-porous, easy-to-scrub surface fit the era’s growing obsession with hygiene. Hospitals and commercial kitchens picked it up for the same reason, and home kitchens and bathrooms followed within a couple of decades. The practical case still holds up over a hundred years later, even though most homeowners choosing it today are thinking about the look, not the sanitation argument that got it started.

Why Subway Tile Keeps Getting Specified

We’ve installed subway tile in kitchens built in the 1970s and kitchens finished last month, and the layout works in both. Some of that comes down to grout lines and offset breaking up a wall visually without fighting whatever cabinetry, countertop, or trim happens to already be in the room. Part of it is simpler than that: the tile is inexpensive relative to almost everything else in the category, so it stays a low-risk choice even for clients who worry about resale.

What we don’t see: clients pulling out a perfectly good subway tile backsplash because it’s dated. Compare that to laminate countertops or oak cabinetry from the same era, both of which get gutted regularly for exactly that reason. Subway tile is one of the few products in this trade that ages by wear, not by style.

What’s Actually Changed Since the Classic 3×6

3×6 is still the most requested size on our jobs, and it’s what people mean by “subway tile” when they don’t qualify it further. Past that baseline, the requests have gotten specific. 2×8, sometimes called the thin subway, shows up in bathroom projects where a client wants more grout lines and more texture in a small space. 3×12 and 4×16, the elongated formats, have become the request we hear most from anyone doing a kitchen renovation right now, fewer grout lines, a longer sightline, a look that reads more current than the classic brick pattern most people still picture.

Grout joint width matters more than clients expect going in. A factory-edge 3×6 wants a tight 1/16-inch joint so the offset reads clean without the grout competing for attention. Handmade or slightly irregular tile needs 1/8 inch or more just to absorb the size variation between pieces, and skipping that step is one of the more common callback causes we see on jobs we didn’t originally quote.

Pattern Options Beyond the Standard Offset

Traditional layout runs a 50% offset, the centre of each tile lined up with the seam of the two below it. That’s the pattern most people picture without knowing its name. Herringbone has become the request we hear most for a feature wall or a statement backsplash behind a range, diagonal cuts around every outlet and edge, more labour, more cost, and clients who ask for it usually already know that going in. Vertical stack, tiles set directly on top of each other with no offset at all, elongates a narrow wall and reads noticeably more contemporary than the brick pattern most homeowners associate with subway tile by default. Basketweave and chevron come up less often on residential jobs, mostly on statement floors rather than backsplashes.

Grout and Colour Choices That Shift the Whole Look

White grout on white tile keeps the offset quiet, close to invisible from across the room, which is what most clients ask for on a first kitchen. Grey or black grout on that same white tile does the opposite, pulling the pattern forward until the layout itself becomes part of the design instead of a background detail. Neither is wrong. It depends on whether the goal is a calm, unified wall or one that shows off the brickwork underneath.

Colour is where the biggest shift has happened in the last few years. We’re quoting more sage green, more deep navy, more black subway tile than we were even three years ago, almost always ceramic rather than a pricier stone option. The shape stays recognizable as subway tile even in a colour nobody would have specified in 2015, which is a decent argument on its own for why the format keeps outlasting whatever’s trending in cabinet colour that season.

Where It Actually Gets Used on Our Jobs

Kitchen backsplashes are still the most common application across Nanaimo, Parksville, and Courtenay, and classic white still accounts for close to half our backsplash quotes even with all the colour interest we’re seeing elsewhere. A proper backsplash tile installation accounts for outlet cutouts, corner transitions, and substrate prep before a single tile goes up, and subway tile’s small format makes those cuts more forgiving than a large-format alternative would be.

Shower and tub surrounds are the second most common request, usually porcelain or ceramic given the constant water exposure, and elongated formats have mostly taken over from the classic 3×6 in that application because fewer grout lines mean less maintenance in a wet space. A bathroom tiles installation quote for a subway-tile shower runs faster than most other tile choices simply because the layout math is straightforward once the substrate’s ready.

Location shifts the request slightly, the way it usually does on this coast. Comox and Courtenay jobs skew toward elongated formats in warm white, tied to broader kitchen renovations. Older Nanaimo character homes still see more classic 3×6 white, matched to trim and mouldings owners want to keep intact. Campbell River’s newer builds are where herringbone feature walls come up most, usually behind a freestanding tub rather than inside the shower itself.

The Cost Case, Not Just the Design Case

Price per square foot is where subway tile wins arguments that have nothing to do with style. Standard ceramic 3×6 runs at the low end of the tile aisle, cheaper than most large-format porcelain and a fraction of natural stone. That gap widens once labour gets added in, since small-format tile is faster to cut and set in a straight offset than large-format material that needs precise substrate flatness to avoid lippage.

Elongated formats and colour glazes push the price up, sometimes close to what a mid-range porcelain would cost per square foot, but the labour side stays roughly the same. A client choosing sage green 3×12 over standard white 3×6 is paying for the tile, not for a harder install. That’s a different trade-off than choosing herringbone, where both material waste and labour hours climb together because of the diagonal cuts.

We tell clients weighing subway tile against a large-format porcelain alternative to think about the wall or floor’s actual condition first. An older Nanaimo home with a wavy plaster wall behind the shower surround is a much easier subway tile install than a large-format one, since the smaller pieces forgive substrate irregularity that a 24×48 slab would show immediately. Sometimes the budget decision and the practical decision point the same direction without anyone planning it that way.

The Disadvantages Nobody Volunteers

Grout lines add up fast on a small tile. More grout means more cleaning, more resealing over the years, and a slightly higher long-term maintenance cost than a large-format tile with fewer joints would carry. That’s the trade a client is actually making for the smaller, cheaper individual pieces, and most product pages skip past it.

Standard white also shows up in enough homes now that some clients worry about it reading as generic rather than distinctive, particularly on a resale-focused renovation where the goal is broad appeal rather than a personal statement. Colour, pattern, and format changes address that concern, but they come at a materials and labour premium over the plain 3×6 that started the whole trend.

Is Subway Tile Outdated in 2026?

No, though the standard 3×6 white version has stopped being the automatic default it was a decade ago. Elongated formats, colour, and herringbone layouts are where most of our current quotes land. The shape itself, offset rectangles, keeps getting specified even as size, colour, and pattern shift underneath it. What’s dated isn’t the tile. It’s the assumption that “subway tile” means one specific look.

What Is the Most Timeless Tile?

Subway tile is the strongest single answer, and the resale-appeal case is stronger for it than for almost anything else in the catalogue. Large-format porcelain and natural mosaic patterns both have staying power too, but they lean toward specific style eras in a way subway tile’s simple rectangle-offset geometry never has. If a client wants one product that won’t need justifying to a future buyer, subway tile is usually where the conversation ends. If you’d rather not guess at it, ask us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does subway tile ever go out of style?

Not in the way trends usually work. The shape and offset pattern have held steady for over a century, though the size and colour clients request keeps changing. Classic 3×6 white has slipped from automatic default to one option among several.

What is the most timeless tile?

Subway tile, by a fair margin, for anyone weighing long-term resale appeal. Its simple rectangle-offset geometry hasn’t tied itself to a particular design era the way large-format porcelain or heavily patterned mosaic sometimes does.

Is the subway tile outdated in 2026?

No. What’s changed is which version gets specified, elongated formats and colour instead of the standard 3×6 white by default. The underlying shape is still the most requested backsplash and shower layout we quote.

What are the disadvantages of subway tiles?

More grout lines than a large-format tile, which means more cleaning and resealing over the years. Standard white can also read as generic on a resale-focused job, though colour and pattern changes solve that at a labour and materials premium.

Does subway tile increase home value?

It’s one of the safer bets in the category for exactly that reason. Buyers rarely object to it the way they sometimes object to a bold colour or an unusual pattern, which matters more at resale than most homeowners expect going in.

What’s replacing subway tile for homeowners who want something different?

Mostly not a different tile at all, just a different version of the same one. Colour, elongated formats, and herringbone patterns cover most of the “I want subway tile but not that subway tile” requests we get.

Central Vancouver Island’s mix of older character homes and newer builds means the request changes street by street, Nanaimo through Campbell River. Confirming what a client actually wants the tile to do, quiet background or a pattern that shows, saves a change order once the first few rows go up.

Related Questions

• Are Subway Tiles Ceramic or Porcelain?
• Are Hexagon Floor Tiles Trendy or Timeless?
• Can Porcelain Tiles Withstand Heat?
• Are Glass Subway Tiles Out of Style?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are Zellige Tiles Going Out of Style? What’s Actually Changing in 2026

Short answer: no. One specific version of it is fading: a saturated statement colour splashed floor to ceiling in a small room. Pull that back to a neutral tone on a backsplash or accent wall and the tile itself isn’t going anywhere. We’ve been asked this question on enough Comox and Courtenay kitchen quotes lately that it’s worth sorting the real trend from the noise.

Is Zellige Tile Trendy or Timeless?

Both, depending on how it’s used. The shape and texture, that slightly wavy handmade surface with light-catching glaze variation, has held up for over a thousand years across Moroccan architecture. That part is timeless. The trend layer sits on top: which colours get specified, how much of a room gets covered, and whether it’s paired with a bold grout or a quiet one.

Neutral zellige in soft white, warm sand, or muted clay reads as material choice, not a decorating moment. Cobalt blue or emerald green zellige wrapping every wall of a small powder room reads as 2026, and it’ll date the same way a fully tiled avocado bathroom dated out of the 1970s. Same tile, completely different shelf life.

What’s Actually Fading Isn’t the Tile, It’s the Colour Choice

Saturated colour is the risk, not zellige as a category. Bold jewel tones, especially covering an entire wall or shower surround, are the fastest to look like a moment rather than a material a few years out. Neutral and muted tones age at a completely different rate.

Clients chasing the warm, sun-bleached look tend to pick sand, bone, and soft terracotta glazes. Those pair with almost any cabinetry or countertop finish going in now or five years from now. The powder room done up in saturated teal or burnt orange is the one that gets a call about a redo before the grout’s even had time to properly cure.

Layout matters almost as much as colour. A full-height statement wall in a bold shade concentrates the risk in one place. The same tile used as a narrow backsplash band, or mixed with plain subway tile on the surrounding walls, spreads the exposure and ages a lot more gracefully.

Why It Caught On in the First Place

Handmade irregularity is the whole appeal. No two zellige tiles glaze exactly the same, and the slight waviness in each piece catches light differently across a wall than a perfectly flat rectified porcelain ever could. That texture reads as intentional and artisanal, which is exactly why it broke out of high-end designer projects and into ordinary kitchen renovations over the past several years.

It also photographs well. A backsplash with real depth and glaze variation stands out in listing photos and design feeds in a way flat, uniform tile doesn’t. That’s a marketing advantage as much as a design one, and it’s part of why demand hasn’t slowed.

The Installation Side Nobody’s Writing About

Every one of the design blogs covering this question skips the part we actually deal with on site. Real zellige is handmade, which means it’s not uniform. Tile thickness varies piece to piece, sometimes by a few millimetres across a single box. Grout joints have to be wider and more forgiving than a standard rectified porcelain install to absorb that variance, and that changes the labour time and the finished look both.

Cut waste runs higher too. Irregular edges and inconsistent sizing mean more pieces get set aside on a job, especially around window returns and inside corners. A contractor quoting a zellige backsplash the same way they’d quote a standard subway tile job is either underbidding the labour or hasn’t installed real zellige before. Our backsplash tile installation page covers what that actually looks like room by room, worth a read before comparing quotes.

Zellige and This Coast’s Wet Climate

Wide, uneven grout joints hold more moisture than a tight, uniform joint. That’s a fine trade-off on a kitchen backsplash that dries out between uses. It matters more in a shower on this coast, where sustained humidity and roughly eight months of damp weather a year slow down how fast anything cures and dries. Sealed grout and a proper cure schedule are non-negotiable on a zellige shower wall in Campbell River or Nanaimo the same way they’d be anywhere, just with a longer window to get it right.

Handmade tile itself isn’t more prone to moisture problems than porcelain. The joint width around it is the variable that needs attention, and it’s a maintenance conversation worth having before a shower install rather than after.

Floor, Backsplash, or Accent Wall? Where It Actually Holds Up

Backsplashes and accent walls are where zellige belongs on most Island jobs. Vertical surfaces don’t take foot traffic, so the softer glaze and slightly uneven surface never get tested the way a floor would. Kitchen and bath backsplashes are the strongest use case by a wide margin.

Floors are the tougher call. Traditional zellige is a softer-fired clay body than porcelain, and it wears and stains differently underfoot over years of daily use. Some manufacturers now produce a porcelain zellige-look tile specifically to solve that, keeping the handmade texture on a body that’s built for floor traffic. Worth asking about directly if the goal is the look on a floor without the maintenance trade-off of the traditional product.

Resale is a non-issue either way, as long as the install itself is sound. Appraisers and buyers respond to a clean, well-executed tile job regardless of colour trend. A cracked grout joint or a lippage problem costs more at resale than any colour choice ever will.

What Is a Cheaper Alternative to Zellige Tile?

Porcelain zellige-look tile is the direct answer, and it’s the one we get asked about most. It’s manufactured to mimic the handmade glaze variation and slight surface waviness at a fraction of the material cost, sometimes half or less depending on the line. It also installs faster because the sizing is consistent, which brings the labour cost down too.

There’s a real trade-off: the look-alike never has the exact depth of a real hand-glazed piece up close. From across a kitchen, most people can’t tell the difference. Our porcelain tile installation page covers the product options if that’s the direction that makes sense for a budget.

What Is the Trend in Kitchen Tiles for 2026?

Warm neutrals over saturated colour, across every tile category, not just zellige. Terracotta, terrazzo with larger chip patterns, and natural stone are all getting specified alongside it rather than replaced by it. Nobody’s competing zellige out of the market. Kitchens are layering it in as one texture among several, usually paired with a plainer subway or large-format tile on the surrounding walls so the handmade piece stays the focal point instead of overwhelming the room.

Matte finishes keep winning over anything glossy, and that holds true whether it’s zellige, porcelain, or natural stone going in.

Ordering samples before committing to a full run is worth the week it costs. Colour variation between batches is normal with handmade tile, and a homeowner who sees three tiles online reacts differently than one standing in front of a full box. Get in touch if a specific kitchen or bathroom layout needs a second opinion before ordering.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is zellige tile trendy or timeless?

Both. The handmade shape and texture has held up for centuries and isn’t a trend. Saturated colour choices and full-room coverage are the trend layer, and those are what actually date.

What is the trend in kitchen tiles in 2026?

Warm neutral tones over saturated colour, matte finishes over glossy, and handmade or textured tile like zellige layered alongside plainer subway or large-format tile rather than covering an entire room on its own.

What is a cheaper alternative to zellige tile?

Porcelain zellige-look tile. It copies the handmade glaze variation and surface waviness at a fraction of the material cost and installs faster because the sizing is consistent, though it doesn’t have quite the depth of a real hand-glazed piece up close.

What are the outdated tile colors?

Cool gray and stark cold white paired with matching grout lead the outdated list across tile categories generally. On zellige specifically, saturated jewel tones covering a full wall or room are the ones most likely to feel dated first.

Related Questions

• Are Kitchen Tiles Out of Fashion?
• Are Tile Floors Out of Style?
• Are Glass Subway Tiles Out of Style?
• Are Square Tiles Back in Style?
• What Is Zellige Tile?
• Are Hexagon Floor Tiles Trendy or Timeless?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8

Are Square Tiles Back in Style?

Yes. Square tile is back in style, and it never really left the way subway tile made it seem. Pulled a backsplash out of a Qualicum Beach kitchen last spring, replaced it with 4×4 square in a soft matte white, and the client asked if she was “doing something risky.” She wasn’t. Square format tile has quietly climbed back onto every mood board this year, and the reasons behind it are more practical than trendy.

Small-format square tile, especially the 4×4 size, is the specific shape driving this. Checkerboard layouts, dark glazed colourways, and a straight-stack pattern that reads as almost retro: all of it is showing up in real jobs across Nanaimo, Parksville, and Courtenay, not just design blogs. Below is what’s actually changed, what it costs, and where it makes sense on an Island renovation right now.

The Short Answer

Square tile spent roughly fifteen years playing second fiddle to the 3×6 subway format. That’s over. Small square format, 4×4 most often, sometimes 5×5 or smaller penny-style pieces, is the size homeowners are asking for on backsplashes, shower walls, and the occasional bathroom floor.

Subway tile isn’t going anywhere. It’s still the safer, more resale-friendly choice. Square format has become the pick for anyone who wants a kitchen or bath that reads a little more intentional, a little less like every other renovation on the street.

Why 4×4 Square Tile Is Suddenly Everywhere

Cost is a big part of it. A basic glazed 4×4 ceramic square runs as low as two dollars a square foot at the wholesale level, cheaper than most subway tile and dramatically cheaper than zellige, which sits anywhere from twenty to thirty dollars a square foot and needs an installer comfortable with its irregular edges. Square format gives homeowners a similar handmade look for a fraction of the price, provided they pick a textured or slightly imperfect line rather than a dead-flat commodity tile.

There’s a nostalgia angle too. A lot of clients in their thirties and forties grew up with small square tile in a grandparent’s kitchen or a 1980s bathroom, and requesting it now reads less as trendy and more as personal. One client last winter wanted mint 4×4 on her powder room floor because it matched a house she remembered from childhood. Not a Pinterest trend, that one. Memory was doing the design work.

Availability plays into it as well, and this is the part homeowners rarely think to ask about. Big-box suppliers stock 4×4 square in a handful of glaze colours year-round now, where five years ago finding anything beyond plain white or almond meant a special order and a six-week wait. Tile showrooms across the Island have followed the same shift. Faster lead times mean a design decision that used to take a client three showroom visits and a month of waiting now gets settled in one afternoon.

Checkerboard and Graphic Layouts Made a Comeback

Two colours, one grid, laid in an alternating pattern. Checkerboard floors and checkerboard shower niches have shown up on three separate jobs this year, more than the previous five combined. Black and white reads the most classic. Yellow and white, sage and cream, terracotta and bone: those pairings show up just as often, usually in a powder room or a small accent wall where the graphic punch doesn’t overwhelm the room.

The pattern only works if the layout gets planned before tile ever hits the wall. Grid alignment has to start from the room’s most visible point, not the nearest corner, or the checkerboard reads crooked the moment someone stands in the doorway.

Dark, Moody Colours vs. Classic White Square Tile

Two directions are pulling client requests right now, and they’re opposites. Dark glazed square, near-black with a high-gloss finish that catches light instead of absorbing it, has become the backsplash of choice for anyone doing a moody kitchen. Straight-stacked behind a range hood, it reads dramatic without needing much else in the room.

Classic white square tile hasn’t gone anywhere either, and it’s arguably the safer long-term bet for resale. The real decision with white square isn’t the tile at all. It’s the grout. Light grout lets the tile disappear into the wall, a soft, almost seamless look. Dark grout on the same white tile turns every joint line into a visible grid, and the room reads completely different depending on which way that choice goes. Homeowners underestimate this more than any other decision on a square tile job.

Glossy or Matte: The Finish Decision

Glossy square tile bounces light around a room and photographs well, which is part of why it’s everywhere on renovation accounts right now. It also shows water spots and soap scum faster in a shower, and every fingerprint on a kitchen backsplash shows up under pendant lighting. Matte square tile hides daily wear better and has become the pick for anyone who actually cooks in their kitchen rather than just photographing it.

Hand-glazed finishes split the difference. Slight variation from tile to tile, a texture that catches light unevenly, closer to the zellige look without the zellige price tag or the zellige installation headaches. That’s the finish getting requested most on jobs where the client has seen a photo online and wants something close, but can’t justify the cost of the real thing.

Where Square Tile Actually Gets Used

Kitchen backsplash is still the number one application, full stop. Behind a stove or sink, square format gives a designer more layout options than a long subway piece ever could, straight stack, offset, checkerboard, even a herringbone variant if the client wants something busier.

Shower walls come second. A full square-tile shower surround, especially in a darker glaze, has become a request we hear at least once a month now, usually paired with a contrasting niche or an accent band partway up the wall. Bathroom floors are the third application and the one that needs the most caution. Small square tile means more grout lines per square foot than a large-format floor tile, and more grout lines means more cleaning and, on an Island bathroom with radiant heat underneath, a slightly higher chance of hairline cracking if the substrate isn’t dead flat before tile goes down.

Matching Square Tile to the Kitchen’s Existing Style

Square tile doesn’t fit every kitchen equally well, and that’s worth saying plainly before anyone orders a sample box. Farmhouse-style kitchens with shaker cabinets and open shelving take small square format easily, especially in a warm white or a soft sage. A sleek modern galley kitchen with flat-panel cabinets and integrated appliances usually reads better with large-format porcelain, the kind with almost no visible grout line at all, because that style leans on clean, unbroken surfaces rather than a busy grid pattern.

Coastal and Craftsman-style homes, common enough across the Island that it’s worth naming, split the difference well. Small-format tile in a soft blue-green or a warm cream sits comfortably in either style without fighting the trim work or the window casings already in the room. The mismatch we see most often: a client falls for a bold graphic photo online, then wants it dropped into a kitchen whose cabinetry, hardware, and lighting were all chosen for an entirely different look. That tile isn’t wrong, exactly. It’s just fighting everything else in the room, and that’s a conversation worth having before the order goes in, not after.

Mudrooms and covered entries have quietly become a fourth spot for square tile, mostly on Island properties where wet boots and dog paws track through daily. Porcelain square in a darker, textured finish hides salt residue and mud better than a large-format tile with fewer grout lines to catch debris. It’s a practical application first, style second, though it usually ends up looking intentional once it’s in.

Square Tile vs. Subway Tile: The Installer’s Take

Subway tile is still the default recommendation for anyone planning to sell within five years. It’s neutral, it photographs fine in any listing, and it never reads as a specific decade the way some square tile layouts can. Square format is the pick for someone staying put, someone who wants the kitchen to feel like theirs rather than a version of every other kitchen on the block.

Installed both. Subway goes up faster, plain and simple, longer pieces mean fewer cuts and fewer grout joints. Square format, especially in a checkerboard or offset pattern, takes real planning before the first tile goes on the wall, and that planning time shows up in the labour quote whether a client expects it or not.

What This Trend Actually Costs Per Square Foot

The question that comes up on every consult now: just give me a rough range. Basic glazed ceramic 4×4 starts around two dollars a square foot for material. Add a hand-glazed or textured line and material cost climbs to five or six dollars. Porcelain square tile in a similar size runs slightly higher than ceramic but holds up better underfoot on a floor application.

Labour is where the real number lives, and it moves with the pattern. A straight-stack backsplash in 4×4 costs roughly the same per square foot as subway tile installation. Checkerboard, offset, or any pattern requiring layout planning before the first cut adds twenty to thirty percent to labour, purely from the extra time spent dry-laying and measuring before anything gets set.

Waste factor climbs with pattern complexity too, and it’s an easy number to underestimate at the quoting stage. A straight-stack job needs roughly ten percent extra material for cuts and breakage. Checkerboard or offset patterns push that closer to fifteen percent, since a botched cut in a two-colour grid can’t just get flipped around and reused the way a plain cut piece often can on a single-colour wall.

Layout and Grout Planning Before Anyone Commits

Grout joint width matters more on small square format than almost any other tile decision on the job. A wider joint, an eighth of an inch or more, reads intentionally handmade and forgives minor tile variation. Tight joints on the same tile look sloppy the moment one piece sits fractionally proud of its neighbour, because there’s nowhere for that variation to hide.

Dry-lay the pattern before mixing a single bag of thinset. That’s not optional advice, that’s the difference between a checkerboard that reads clean from the doorway and one that visibly drifts by the time it reaches the far wall. On any square tile job with a pattern more complex than a straight stack, we spend real time chalk-lining the layout before the first piece ever touches mortar.

Is This a Trend or Does It Hold Up

Trends fade. Square tile as a format doesn’t, because it’s been in continuous production and continuous use for over a century, longer than subway tile itself. What comes and goes is the specific colour and pattern choice riding on top of that format. Checkerboard will look dated in a decade the same way avocado appliances did. A well-installed 4×4 in a neutral glaze, straight-stacked with a sensible grout colour, ages the way it always has: quietly, and without embarrassing anyone at resale.

The plain read after two decades of pulling old tile out of Island homes: format rarely dates a room. Colour and pattern do. Pick the loud checkerboard if it makes the kitchen feel like home right now. Just don’t expect it to read as timeless in fifteen years, because nothing that specific ever does.

Clients ask fairly often whether they should just wait the trend out and stick with something safer. Rarely worth it. A kitchen gets used every day for a decade or two before the next renovation, and a style choice that makes someone happy walking into their own kitchen outweighs a hypothetical resale buyer’s opinion five, ten, fifteen years down the road. Resell-neutral choices matter more on a flip. On a home someone plans to live in, personal preference wins that argument almost every time. Plenty of this depends on what’s already there, so get in touch and we’ll take a proper look.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is square tile outdated?

No. Square format has been in continuous use for over a hundred years and is currently trending upward, not down. What dates a square tile job is a specific colour or pattern choice, like a dated grout tone or an overly busy checkerboard, not the square shape itself.

What are the trends in tiles in 2026?

Small-format square tile, dark and moody glazed colours, checkerboard and graphic patterns, and hand-glazed or textured finishes that mimic zellige without the zellige price. Large-format porcelain is still common on floors, but backsplashes and shower walls have swung back toward smaller, more textured pieces.

What are the outdated tile colors?

Flat beige, builder-grade taupe, and high-gloss forest green from the early 2000s read the most dated right now. Almost anything in a warm neutral or a deep, saturated tone, black, sage, terracotta, still reads current.

What tile is in style right now?

Small square format, zellige and zellige-look hand-glazed tile, textured or dimensional tile with a 3D surface, and warm neutral large-format porcelain on floors. Glossy and matte are both in play depending on the room, though matte has the edge in kitchens that see real daily use.

Considering square tile for a kitchen or bathroom on the Island? Book a backsplash tile installation consult and get a straight answer on pattern, cost, and timeline before committing to anything.

Related Questions

• Are Square Tiles Outdated?
• Should I Back Butter Floor Tiles?
• Are Tile Backsplashes Still in Style?
• Are Tile Floors Out of Style?

Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8