Wall tiles: Pretty protective

Good looks, excel­lent hygiene and a long ser­vice life: tiles are still the mater­i­al of choice in today’s bath­rooms. More and more often, they are also used on walls as an inten­tion­al design fea­ture. Our expert shares some use­ful design tips and gives advice on how to prop­erly install and handle this pop­u­lar mater­i­al.

Tip 1: Avoid wild patterns in small bathrooms

A mul­ti­tude of col­ors, shapes, mater­i­als and design options – the huge vari­ety of wall tiles is simply amaz­ing. Nowadays, tiles in bold col­ors or pas­tel shades as well as tiles imit­at­ing the nat­ur­al look of wood or stone are very much in vogue. But also tiles of pur­ist or min­im­al­ist design are still very trendy. But beware: Fancy pat­terns are only suit­able for large rooms of uni­form design, not for small bath­rooms where they cre­ate a sense of clut­ter or con­fine­ment.

Tip 2: Floor-to-ceiling tiles have practical advantages

Floor-to-ceil­ing tiled walls in bath­rooms offer bet­ter pro­tec­tion against mold and are easi­er to clean (espe­cially large formats) than oth­er wall cov­er­ings. Only the joints need to be cleaned reg­u­larly. Since most clean­ing agents are acid­ic, they must only briefly be allowed to act on the joints in order to avoid dam­age. Tiling only the bot­tom half of the wall and cov­er­ing the upper half with wood­chip wall­pa­per cre­ates a more homely atmo­sphere. The advant­age of wood­chip wall­pa­per is also that it can be quickly adap­ted to new home trends by simply giv­ing it a new paint coat. How­ever, the untiled wall areas remain sus­cept­ible to mold attack and mil­dew stains. If you want to avoid the mold prob­lem, apply a plaster coat (alkaline) instead of wall­pa­per. And: Take care to always wipe the tiles with a dry cloth after tak­ing a shower!