A few members of our staff went to Atlanta to attend Coverings last week. Coverings is a trade show focused on tile and stone, and it’s the largest exhibition of this type in North America. One fun feature they had was an exhibition of tiny houses, which had live installations done over the first couple of days and were on display at the end of the show. The unique limitations of designing for a tiny house led to some great finished spaces.
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With over 1,000 exhibitors at the show, we noticed several themes and styles repeated in different ways. These give us an idea of trends and popular styles, and it’s been fun to break these into a few categories.
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One trend that we observed is highly textured or raised pattern tiles. We saw many of them in clean white, but colorful options were displayed as well. These can be great to use as a kitchen backsplash, feature wall in a bathroom, or anywhere else you want some visual movement that isn’t too busy. The smooth glossy surfaces wipe clean easily and reflect the light in a truly eye-catching way.
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Another style we saw repeated was a variety of globally inspired patterns in multiple colors. These ranged from fairly simple to highly complex, including the popular encaustic-look patterns, a variety of geometrics, novelty patterns, and decorative florals. We saw some very interesting stone mosaics in beautiful patterns as well.
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Metallics were another big feature, especially gold tones. These varied in texture and shine, and they were sometimes mixed with other materials. Several of the categories we saw overlapped with one another, and metallics crossed into several other trends.
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A weathered, rustic, distressed style was shown by several manufacturers as well. Some of these were muti-toned colorways, others had patterns with the appearance of heavily worn edges, and some were subtly patterned tiles with an overall weathered look.
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Wood-look tile continues to be popular, and the techniques used to create these tiles have evolved very nicely since they first hit the market. There is a wide variety available, and we enjoy finding the most attractive versions in the best tones.
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Mixed textures, mixed colors, and mixed patterns were also popular. These give you a great way to include a lot of variety without trying to actually mix different tiles, which can be difficult when it comes to sizes, thickness, and color.