Choosing New Kitchen Tiles

The choice of tiles in a kitchen can either make or break the room. I'm sure each and every one of us has walked into a kitchen and thought 'oh my god!' when being faced with an outdated mishmash of old fashioned kitchen wall tiles. Worse still or those kitchens where the owner has tried to rectify an outdated design by covering old ceramic kitchen tiles with those cheap plastic tile sheets which can be purchased from most pound shops.

If you want to bring your kitchen up to date or back to life, then the only real option is to peel everything back to the bare walls and start from scratch. It's only when everything has been stripped out that one can stand back and really get a good idea of the potential the kitchen has. Two things stop most people from starting afresh with their kitchen; time and money. Can you cope if your kitchen is a building site for a week or two? Can you afford to rip out everything and replace it?

Kitchen floor tiles, cupboards, shelves, units, wall tiles and plumbing may all come out if you're looking for a completely new look. For one reason or another, the sink always seems to be located facing the window, but this may hinder the 'working triangle' which every kitchen needs to work. So moving the sink away from the window could be a good place to start. With the sink moved away from the window, you'll need to put kitchen tiles on the wall behind the sink to act as a splash back.

As the kitchen is a room for work rather than relaxation, keeping the colours and tones to a minimum is advisable are we're trying to move away from the busy, Mediterranean influenced ceramic kitchen tiles which were popular decades ago. The kitchen is for working in so you need to choose kitchen tiles which will enhance the available natural light rather than dumb it down. So choosing white or pale coloured kitchen wall tiles will make all the difference, especially in smaller kitchens.

Contrasting pale wall tiles with darker kitchen floor tiles works extremely well, as having pale or white tiles on both the walls and the floor can result in a sterile space with too much white. Terracotta is too brown for this day and age, however black, dark grey, blue or green work really well on the floor. Try to avoid glazed kitchen floor tiles as these can become very slippery when water or grease has been spilled. Non glazed ceramic kitchen tiles look better and are safer in the kitchen.

Whether you're just replacing the tiles or cupboard doors, or ripping out the entire kitchen and starting from scratch, think long and hard about how your new kitchen should look. Whatever you do, don't look for the inexpensive quick fix as you'll never have a dream kitchen. Remember, you spend a lot of time working in the kitchen so at least make sure it's a pleasurable space to work in.