The choice and the realization of your tiles joints make a significant contribution to the final look of your floor covering. Irrespective of the aesthetic qualities of the tiles, joints badly done, too large or a wrong tile joints colour choice could give a very unpleasant and unnatural result.
Please take a few moments to read this article, as we want to give you some simple and useful tips to help you choose easily the best colour for your tiles joints. Such a delicate issue, as no fixed rules or technical documents are yet to be found: your final choice should be driven just by your personal taste, some experience and good, old-fashioned common sense!
First tip: adjust the joints colour to the selected tiles
Stone Effect: Geo tiles with grey joints
If you have chosen tiles inspired by some specific materials (such as Wood, Stone or Concrete Effect..) search for photos of the original material to see its most common uses and combinations. For instance, Wood is usually applied without any joints, then to get a more natural effect you should choose joints as thin as possible and in colours perfectly matching (or as close as possible) the colour of your Wood Effect tiles. Put it simply, it should merge with the tiles! In the case of Terracotta, instead, a medium intensity grey would be better. Finally, if you pick out a Stone Effect floor, all depends on the type of stone you choose..just look around you to discover the best combination!
Second trick: think about the cleaning of your tiles joints
While Porcelain Stoneware floors have almost zero water absorption, unfortunately this is not the case of tiles joints. In concrete terms, if tiles do not get stained, joints do! Rooms with heavy foot traffic or particularly exposed to dirt – such as kitchens, foyers with direct access to the outside, etc..- it would be better to avoid too light colours, as they get dirty more easily – and in a non-uniform way- within just few weeks.
Third tip: go for a lighter tone
If you have chosen tile joints of a colour similar to the floor one, we suggest you pick out a tone a bit lighter rather than slightly darker. There is no objective evidence..it’s just our experience!
Last but not least, choose grey joints!
If you have no idea which colour to select, in most cases a grey tone of the same intensity (actually a bit lighter, see tip 3) of your floor tiles gives a better final result than a clumsy attempt to imitate the tone of your floor. A grey joint of the same intensity of your tiles seems, almost by magic, to be exactly the same colour of your tiles! On the contrary, a joint with a different colour tonality will give your floor some unwanted nuances of red, yellow or green.
Moon tiles: beige joints alter original tiles colour
In 90% of Novoceram cases, the colour chosen for the floor joints is grey; for instance, in our stands, the setting in our photos and in our showroom, Caroscope. On the other 10%, we usually mix grey with other colours (usually ivory in case of light colours, brown in case of dark ones) if we believe it’s necessary to make the selected colour a bit warmer.
Petitot tiles with grey joints
As previously mentioned, the choice of tile joints is not supposed to meet any technical standards: the above indications are nothing more than a summary of the criteria we usually follow in Novoceram to lay tiles in our stands, in our photographic sets and in our showroom. These selected criteria are the result of our many years of experience, but also a lesson learnt from some inevitable errors; these tips seem to work well with the style and use of our products.
However, nothing prevents you from loosing your imagination and choose wide, bright and colourful joints!
