Tiling Decisions….

One of my absolute favorite additions to the house is our new laundry room. Before we started the renovation, our home had no laundry room and our washer and dryer lived in the garage. This was not that big of a deal since it is just Matt and me at the moment. However, the thought of having no laundry room with children made me extremely nervous…not so much the need to go outside to do the laundry, but the fact that we would have nowhere to sort, fold, iron, etc. all the mounds of laundry that come along with children's multiple costume changes. But thanks to the decision to move the stairs, we now have a perfect location upstairs for a fairly large laundry room, which you can see highlighted in yellow below:

On one wall we will have our washer, dryer, a hanging rod above to dry clothes, and a large floor to ceiling pantry to store all of our clothes washing accoutrements:

The opposite wall will include a sink, lots of built-in storage, as well as folding and sorting space above the lower cabinets:

I am so excited about all the storage and folding space that we are gaining. Since this room in an interior room with no exterior windows, we have to be contentious about our color palette to make sure the room doesn’t turn into a dark hole. To accomplish this, we have picked white cabinets to help keep the room nice and bright since they will be the dominate feature in the room. The countertops will be made out of the remainder of our cararra marble slab from the guest bathroom. We also have red GE front load washer and dryer, which are a dream! These bad boys can handle a king size duvet cover without even flinching. LOVE IT‼! However, they do impact the rest of the colors that we can use in the room. I need to hit the fabric store for inspiration…but have a few options that I am considering. First is a grey, white, and yellow pallet with a pops of red. I found these great lantern tiles as a possible option for the backsplash:

I love the shape of the tiles and think they will bring a lot of interest to the room. I also plan to add a tile "floor mat" like picture below in the center of the laundry room:

I know this is a bathroom, but it gives an idea of the direction I am heading. I would create the "floor mat" with these tiles surrounded by a simple thin grey boarder and large white porcelain tiles:

I would bring in pops of yellow and red with baskets on the two open shelves above the sink as well as other accessories and fabrics to help tie everything together. Here is an idea of how the tiles would look on both walls.

I might try to adding a boarder around the edge of the grey lantern tiles, like this:

These are Walker Zanger Ashbury tiles, which are AMAZING‼‼ However, they are a bit cost prohibitive to use in our laundry room, but they are going to make an appearance in our master bath as part of accent wall in our shower (which I will show you that in a later post). But for now, let me just take another quick moment to daydream about these little darlings….I love, love, love these tiles!

The second color combination that I am pondering is black and white, with pops of red and yellow. In this case, I would use black lantern tiles for the backsplash:

And use this fun mosaic I found to create the tile "floor mat":

I love the little flowers on that tile and think that they would make me smile whenever I went to do some laundry. Like the other color combo, I would bring in pops of yellow and red through baskets, accessories and fabrics. Here is an idea of how the tiles would look on both walls:

I really dig the contrast of the black tiles on the white cabinets and think they will also pop against the cararra marble countertops. But then, another part of me just wants to go off the deep end of the color pool and use this FABULOUS tile I found at Home Depot:

If I use this tile as the backsplash, I would keep the floor plain white, bring in a super colorful rug and use a mixture of colorful accents. This tile makes just makes me smile! And if you are have to be stuck in a room with no windows doing laundry, why not bring the outside in to brighten you day?!?! Well, there we are for now. But I would love to hear what you think...which, if any, possible tile options do you like the best? Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fantastic day!