The colour of your grout can make or break the look of your tile. The grout color can create different effects or visually blend away. To help you choose the right grout colour for your tile scheme, here are some favourite looks you might want to consider, along with some general advice for virtually every tiling scenario you might encounter.
Colorful Tile + Gray Grout
Once you move away from stark white or black, pairing vibrant-colored tile with the right shade of grout (as demonstrated brilliantly by the above wall tiling of a hip café) becomes a bit trickier. It is harder to tell what grout will contrast the tile or blend in. It’s important to look at the color still as having a value — darkness or lightness — that is separate from the intensity of the hue itself.
One trick that can help you assess the color value of your tile is to take a photo of the tile and use a program or app to make the image black and white (often referred to as a “saturation” or “desaturate” option).
Once you take the hue out of the equation, you can really see how light or dark the color is and choose a grout that will either contrast with or match that level of value to get the result you want.
Choosing a gray grout that is close in value to the tile will allow the grout to fade into the background, which creates an uninterrupted color statement. Going a little lighter or darker will subtly highlight the grout a bit more to bring out the pattern, but it won’t create as much contrast as with white tile.
Colorful Tile + White or Light Grout
Using a white or very light grout with a vivid tile may sound dramatic, but it actually helps to tame wild colors and give the space a cleaner, more timeless feel. There is a reason you so often see bright reds paired with crisp white. It’s because it helps make the color livable.
Colorful Tile + Colorful Grout
If you’re already adding colorful tile, why not add colorful grout to go with it? A pairing like this understated blue and vibrant yellow feels bold and exotic, bringing a bit of international hotel appeal without much added cost.
Other Design Considerations
Besides the tile color and shade, there are other factors that can affect how the look of your grout will turn out.
Surrounding colors and materials.
Here’s an example in which a colorfully tinted grout doesn’t actually feel nearly as bold as in previous examples. The rosy undertones of this grout pick up on the tones of the surrounding wood, so they actually blend in rather than pop.
Using a bit of a red or brown tint in your grout can work well to coordinate with nearby materials like brick, wood, leather or stone, so make sure to consider all the nearby finishes and not just the tile itself.
We can give you swatches of the grout just like with paint or other materials, so you can put all of your finishes and samples together in one place and see how they look together.
Thanks for reading; we hope you found valuable information to help you better plan your next tile remodelling project. Please reach out to us (chat app is the quickest way) if you have grout-tile pairing questions or want to bounce-off and vet ideas for your next project.
The team at your local Calgary Master Tiler would love to work with you,
Comments