Tile Color Inspiration Room by Room

Searching for a tile color for your space? With so many attractive tile colors to choose from, settling on the perfect one can be a challenge.

While the right tile color for you depends on many factors, including your personal aesthetic and the size of your space, your first consideration should be the function of the room you plan on tiling. Different rooms have different needs, and a color that works for one type of room won’t necessarily be a great choice for another.

To help get you started, we’ve created this room color inspiration guide, equipped with tile color ideas for every room of the house — plus some additional tips to help you with your tile selection.

Bathroom Color Ideas

Because of their (typically) smaller size, bathrooms present an opportunity to pack a creative punch with a great tile color. 

So what are the best bathroom colors? Color experts at Martha Stewart say that these are the bathroom colors that will be most popular in 2021:

Of these colors, our favorite bathroom color ideas are pale blue, moody green, and chalk white.

Blue bathroom colors have long been a favorite, and pale blue is a particularly refreshing option. Options include cool, dusty blue with a hint of gray and a slightly brighter blue, such as that pictured above, that’s reminiscent of water.

Moody green bathroom colors are the go-to choice to create a statement bathroom look this year. Rich or deep nature-inspired green tile offers the dual benefits of being bold and still visually pleasing.

White bathroom tile was popularized in the Victorian era and still hasn’t gone out of style, for good reason. Chalk white tile creates an even more crisp and clean look — perfect for bathrooms. 

If white tile isn’t for you but you still want to go with a neutral, you can’t go wrong with grey bathroom colors. Like white, grey bathroom colors give you the option to change up the look of your bathroom with accent colors whenever you feel like a new design. Both white and gray tile are also excellent options if you’re looking for farmhouse bathroom colors.

[Related: Colorful Bathroom Floor Tile Ideas]

Master Bedroom Color Ideas

Master bedroom colors are a highly personal choice — after all, this space is entirely your own, and the bedroom colors you choose need to please you and no one else. That said, keeping certain considerations in mind will help you create your personal oasis.

For example, many people choose to go with a bedroom tile color that promotes sleep. The best bedroom colors for sleep include blue, light pink, white, beige, and green — all shades that make you feel relaxed, secure, and happy. 

Very dark and very bright hues can be too energizing for a space in which you’re supposed to wind down. 

Feng shui is an important consideration for any room, but especially for your bedroom, since it is the room that is most personal and private, and is thus the most connected to your qi (or life force energy). As a result, many people try to find the best color for bedroom feng shui.

The best feng shui bedroom colors depend on what you’re personally attracted to as well as what feelings you would like to cultivate. For instance, you might choose:

Many people gravitate toward neutral bedroom colors to let their furnishings and textures do the talking. If you go this route, don’t worry that you’re limiting yourself to white, gray, and beige — neutral bedroom color ideas are numerous, with many new neutrals even sporting a touch of color.

[Related: Pantone’s 2021 Colors of the Year: Ultimate Gray and Illuminating]

Living Room Color Ideas

As your primary gathering and entertaining space, the living room is typically the room where you want to make the best impression. Of course, you have a huge selection of ceramic tile options for your living room space, so we’ve grouped the options into three colorways: neutral living room colors, mood-setting dark living room colors, and colorful and bright living room colors.

Neutral living room color ideas include white, gray, greige, beige, blush pink, gray-green, brown, and black. We’re particularly excited about colors such as blush pink and gray-green, which are some of the new neutrals becoming increasingly popular right now. 

When it comes to darker and moody living room color schemes, dark blues, blacks, deep greens, and dark wood looks make stunning backdrops for furnishings. Navy blue living room color schemes are timeless, and peacock color palettes are currently trending. Flooring, accent walls, and tiled fireplace surrounds are all beautiful opportunities to incorporate ceramic tile into your living room.

If you’re looking for bright, colorful living room ideas to add energy to your space, consider yellows, pinks, and light blues, greens, and blue-greens.

[Related: Grout Color Guide: How to Choose the Right Grout Color for Your Tile]

Kitchen Color Ideas

Choosing a tile color for your kitchen can be both challenging and fun, since you have the opportunity to coordinate with all your other tiled surfaces, appliances, cabinets, and paint colors. 

While kitchen color options are numerous, a few kitchen colors stand out as particularly popular choices. 

First up, we see a lot of neutral kitchen colors, which allow you to play with colorful cabinets or appliances as accents. Think white, beige, gray, or sage. In terms of choosing a tile style, these neutral hues give you the option of picking a monochromatic design or a natural look such as stone or wood looks.

For warm kitchen colors, yellows, oranges, and reds are cheerful options. While you can certainly choose bright versions of each of these shades, lighter and more muted tones are also available, such as light yellow-beige, terracotta, and rich reds with brown undertones. And as an added bonus, orange and red are thought to stimulate appetite — making them perfect for kitchens.

Additionally, blue kitchen colors never go out of style, and blue tile looks great with a wide range of cabinet colors. In fact, blue tile is one of the most popular backsplash trends.

[Related: Hot Kitchen Flooring Tile Trends]

Open-Concept Floor Plan Color Ideas

Open-concept floor plans have long been popular due to the expansive feeling they create and their ability to bring together the entire family in one space. When it comes to choosing colors for these spaces, there are additional considerations:.

Do you choose one color for the entire space? Or multiple? And if the latter, how many different tones?

Behr recommends choosing a harmonious color palette of three to five colors, including:

• One white or light tone
• One to two neutral tones
• One to two supporting colors

You can also use different colors to delineate different areas within your open-concept space, such as the kitchen, dining area, and living room. Earth tones are a great option because they tend to look good with each other as long as they are in similar tones. 

If working with multiple colors, try to use your colors in different ways throughout the space to tie everything together.

Outdoor Room Color Ideas

Porches, patios, decks, and pool surrounds are valuable living spaces for any home — and another opportunity to create an impactful ceramic tile design.

When choosing colors for an outdoor space, remember to work with the existing colors in your home’s facade and surrounding natural elements. The best colors for outdoor spaces will depend on those existing tones. Popular options use earth tones to create spaces that blend in with the natural surroundings..

Neutral tones let greenery or water features in your outdoor space steal the show. After all, there’s no competing with these natural accents.

Dining Room Color Ideas

The dining room is a popular area to use a statement color to make a strong design impact. For many people, that means choosing dramatic dining room colors such as deep red, blue, brown, or even black.

Bright dining room colors can also make a strong impact. Popular options include sunny yellow, chrome yellow, cantaloupe, bright blue, turquoise, and coral.

Of course, dining rooms aren’t always closed-off spaces — they’re often just off a kitchen or living room, meaning that you can’t really choose a color for the dining room alone. Neutral hues tend to be the best dining room colors for open floor plans, but that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate any color. 

While The Spruce recommends a greige tone as its “best neutral” for dining rooms, soft greens and light, airy pink shades are also suggested.

[Related: Cool Kitchen Flooring Tile Trends]

Laundry Room Color Ideas

The laundry room may be a utility room by design, but that doesn’t mean it has to have a utilitarian look. Adding ceramic tile to your laundry room can simultaneously protect your surfaces and give your space style.

So what are the best laundry room colors? The Spruce recommends the following laundry room color ideas to create your optimum laundry room vibe. What’s your preference— clean and soothing or polished and energized—to perform the task?

Rather than stark white tile, opt for a white with hints of beige and/or gray to add warmth while still maintaining a clean and bright look.

Light beige tile is a versatile choice that looks good with a wide range of accent colors. Since it doesn’t stand out too much, light beige is ideal for transitional laundry rooms that you can see from other parts of the house, such as the kitchen or a bathroom.

Pink tile adds personality to small laundry rooms. While softer pinks such as the one below create a vintage look, brighter pinks and corals make a spunky statement.

[Related: Pretty Pastels: Tile in Pastel Tones]

Color Inspiration for Any Room of the House

Here are a few more tile color ideas that work for any room of the house.

Nature Color Inspiration

Nature-inspired colors are becoming increasingly popular as part of the larger trend of biophilic design. Incorporating a nature-inspired color palette and other natural elements into your home can help fulfill your inherent need to connect with nature, as well as improve your well-being.

Nature-inspired colors include earth tones such as greens, browns, reds, and earthy yellows. You can also opt for ocean-inspired colors, including blue, teal, turquoise, or aqua.

[Related: Back to Nature: Ceramic Tile in Earth Tones]

Colors That Inspire Creativity

What color inspires creativity? 

An experiment led by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that blue opens people’s minds to new ideas and promotes trust, communication, and efficiency — all important elements for creativity. And in a study from the University of Munich, green was shown to spur innovation by promoting balance and harmony.

However, colors that inspire creativity are also deeply rooted in personal aesthetics; so if purple is your very favorite color, for example, it may be the right choice for promoting your innovation.

[Related: Tile Color Psychology: How Your Tile Color Affects Your Mood]

Colors That Make a Room Look Bigger

When you’re trying to decorate a small apartment or home, you may want to choose tile in colors that make a room look bigger. The best colors for creating a spacious look include:

[Related: Ultimate Colors of the Year Palette]

Let Your Colors Shine

Whichever room you are designing, we hope you’ve found the perfect tile color. For more tile color inspiration, check out our other color guides below or explore the different options in our Design Gallery.