Like many fashion or home designs, tile trends come and go. One trend that’s on point right now is shapely tiles. Shapes like arabesque, penny round, triangle, and hexagon—once popular in the early-to-mid 1900s—are making a comeback in a big way. Today’s geometric-shaped tiles are trending in natural-stone marble in color variances of white to gray. They make a luxury impact in shower niches, bathroom floors and kitchen backsplashes, especially when countertops are of Carrara Marble or white quartz.

If you use geometric tiles, grout lines are of utmost importance. Grout should fade into the style, not detracting from the tile shape and design. Grout in classic white, gray or beige works best and allows the tile to stand out on its own. Darker geometric tiles should use darker grout, for example, a black hexagon tile in a shower niche looks sharp when grouted with a dark gray or black grout. When you pop in a dark hexagon niche or shower floor against a white tiled shower, you have a bold, yet classic, bathroom design.

Thanks to hexagon’s sharp corners, some homeowners are choosing to let the shape define the border of a kitchen backsplash. Because of how hexagon tiles stack, an interesting pattern draws the eye upwards in a hexagon-bordered backsplash. Clean, thin grout lines and having a uniform thinnest thickness is the only way to pull this look off expertly.

To get a sense of what geometric tiles look like once fully installed, search Pinterest for ideas. Tile distributors, like TileBar, do a good job of posting tile trends and project pictures to inspire homeowners. We’ve even created our own Pinterest Board to showcase hexagon and geometric styles we love. Check it out here https://pin.it/2zbbaaeybb7bnd and make sure to follow us on Pinterest @MrTileNC and Facebook at facebook.com/MrTileandHome for more home and tile style ideas.