Even if you have never laid down tiles yourself before and have no idea about tiles, remember that tiles are a great tool to play around with and they do not simply belong to just your floors. Tiles are also a tool for which you don’t need to spend plenty of money or time with before getting beautiful results for.

Be it that you have some tiles left over from your old renovation project or you are just finding new ways to modify your house, we have got some excellent ideas to put your tiles to work and to add some flavour to the interior of your house.

Table Top

Change the look of your old or not very vibrant table by adding a new texture, layer to it with tiles. A table top bordered or layered with tiles is called a tile top. Usually, rectangular or square shaped tables are the easiest ones to tile as you only need to make straight cuts on your tiles. If you have a round, oval table or one with an unusual shape, then cutting the tiles out to fit the borders of the table is not going to be an easy task. It is easy to cut straight lines on a tile but not curved arc shapes. But you can use mosaics or smaller tiles to fill the borders of a curved table and get good results by using this method!

If you are going to use the table outdoors, then remember to put a generous amount of adhesive in the center of the tile before sticking them on. The center has to have more glue than the sides. But at the same time, remember to paste it evenly down as you would not want a cup or a plate to be tilting when you place it on the tile top. The angle that you are aiming for is an even but gradual tilt so that any rainwater or spills would run off easily instead of accumulating in the middle and making it hard to clean. Use the laws of Physics and make gravity your friend when attempting such DIY projects!

Mirror Frames

You can place tiles around the borders of your dressing table mirrors or mirror frames. This gives it an attractive and one of a kind frame that you can’t easily find in stores. If you are planning to tile a bathroom mirror, then try to use the same colour tiles that your shower already has in place. It brings a good connection to the different items you have in the room and brings the whole theme together.

There are a few ways you can use to frame any mirror. You can place the tiles and use adhesives to apply them directly onto the surface of the mirror, you can place them around the rims of the mirror, or you can put the tiles up on the wall and place your mirror in the middle of it.

If you would prefer to place the tiles directly onto the surface of the mirror, then ensure that you use a 100% silicone sealant. To make sure that you can’t eventually see the backs of the tiles reflecting on the mirror, use a clear sealant and ensure that the back of the tiles are dark in colour.

If you are going to place the tiles around the rims of the mirror, then make sure to put the mortar right onto the tiles and then stick them onto the walls. This way, you would not get mortar leaking out in excess to the sides of the tiles when you place them on. This will be really difficult to clean up later!

Living Room

Usually our suggestion would be for the area around the fireplace, since there is a rim and border to work with. But we do know in no way are Singaporean houses going to have a fireplace! So as an alternative, you can work on the area around or under your television set in your living room. It could be around a painting or a display above your television too, depending on the level with which you place it.

While using tiles for your living room on the walls, you can consider doing up a strip of display near the entrance too. We suggest using a porcelain tile that would look attractive and at the same time live up durable to be placed in the living room. There are so many patterns of porcelain tiles that you can play with too! Want a woody look or a modern Chevron strip? Or even if you are looking at something more vibrant and hippy – you name it, we have it. There are so many variations of porcelain tiles that you can choose from, you would be spoilt for choice!

If you have a balcony and a garden, and especially if you have pets like birds or small animals in cages – it would be perfect to get some tiling work around this area too. Placing different tiles at a small area on the floor even can be demarcated as a play den for your pets.

Backsplash

Tile backsplashes are the trendy, in-thing now as shown in plenty of kitchens in television series. They are so popular for a good reason as well, they bring in so much of vibrance and colour to your otherwise normal kitchen!

Subway tiles are a popular choice for kitchen backspashes – although mosaic, accent or glass tiles can add slightly more variety in terms of colour, texture and pattern. This might be more appealing visually than subway tiles.

Other than being a total treat to your eye and for something your guests to awe upon, adding tiles into the empty, boring space between the countertops and cabinets on top makes it a lot easier to get grease off your furniture. Wood or other materials used to make up such furniture are not completely stain-resistant, and we know that. Months or years of cooking with oil and other substances is going to slowly add a layer of debris, grease and moisture and this is going to sink into the material. Just imagine having tiles as a coating in this situation, tiles come with a wax or glass surface on top of the stone which is so easy to clean! One wipe and you can get most of the grease, food and debris away.

To make the installation of the tiles faster and simpler, use a double sided membrane which is a peel and stick one. This is called an adhesive tile mat which you can find in DIY stores. You can use this to stick the tile to the wall and it would hold it in place. This is a good way to get them on the walls because using liquid adhesive takes time to dry whereas this would be done within the day itself.

Garden area

Outdoor wooden planters for flowers or small plants are not very expensive and are very simple to build as DIY projects. Go an extra mile with your project by adding tiles to your outdoor planters, on the side, to give them a colourful or posh look! Use Certified Porcelain tiles if you do so though, since it absorbs the least water and would better be able to withstand rain or shine and remain vibrant.

You can stick this on directly to the wood – but remember that wood expands and contracts according to the temperature and weather, so you might start to notice cracks and lines on the adhesive or even on your tile if you use something of a poor quality. To avoid this, use Certified Porcelain as we mentioned before, and also screw a cement board over the wood and then tile over that. This board would protect the adhesive and your tiles.

Finally, you can even place a single tile under your normal looking flower pot to bring it more character! You can place tiny pieces of mosaic tiles too for the same purpose, or you can break different coloured tiles to create your own new design.

Be careful while breaking the tiles! Wrap it while it is facing down on a thick towel and hit the tile with a hammer to get it broken. Ensure that you wear safety glasses while doing this, as although it is wrapped in a towel, it can still fly out and injure your eye. But don’t go too crazy on this and start hitting the tile too hard though, as then you would end up with powdered pieces which cannot be used rather than small and cute bits of tile.

We hope you found this informative and interesting, and we hope you try some of our out of the norm tile ideas too!