Tiles by room and finish

Start with the room

Each room page carries the spec lines that actually decide the choice there, and the eight finishes ranked against it.

• Bathroom tiles

  A bathroom floor in this climate stays wet for hours at a time through the monsoon, so the floor tile is a safety decision before it is an aesthetic one. Walls are where the design freedom lives — they never carry a wet footfall.

• Kitchen tiles

  Kitchen floors take oil, acid and dropped weight, usually in the same square metre. The finish choice is mostly a cleaning-effort choice: what you pick decides whether a spill is invisible or obvious, and whether the floor is grippy or slick once it is.

• Living Room tiles

  The living room is the largest continuous run of floor in most homes, which makes it the room where format matters more than finish. Fewer, larger tiles mean fewer grout lines, and grout lines are what age visibly.

• Bedroom tiles

  Bedrooms are the lowest-stress floor in the house — low traffic, dry, and rarely exposed to anything harsher than a dropped phone. That widens the field rather than narrowing it.

• Balcony tiles

  A balcony is a semi-exposed floor: rain reaches it, sun bleaches it, and it drains across its own surface. It is an outdoor spec on an indoor-sized area, which is why an ordinary indoor tile fails there first.

• Outdoor tiles

  Outdoor tile is chosen against weather rather than against wear. Rainfall in this region is measured in metres per year, and UV plus repeated soak-dry cycling is what eventually ends an outdoor floor.

• Parking tiles

  A parking floor carries point loads from tyres, gets dragged across by grit, and is regularly wet with rain and oil. It is the most demanding domestic floor there is, and it is the one most often specified as an afterthought.

• Terrace tiles

  A terrace is an outdoor floor sitting on top of an occupied room, so the tile is only half the decision — the waterproofing and the falls underneath it are the other half, and they are what actually keeps the ceiling below dry.

• Office tiles

  An office floor is a commercial-traffic problem in a residential-looking room: many more footfalls per square metre than a home, chair castors working the same tracks daily, and cleaning that happens on a schedule rather than on demand.

What each finish means

The finish is the face of the tile. It decides how the surface behaves wet, how much light it returns, and how visible a spill is before you get to it.

Anti-Skid

A structured or textured surface with a measured slip rating (R10–R12 under DIN 51130). Chosen for floors that are walked on wet — bathrooms, balconies, terraces, parking.

Matte

A non-reflective glaze. Hides water marking, oil splatter and foot traffic better than any gloss, at the cost of some brightness in a dark room.

Glossy

A reflective glaze. Returns light, which makes small and low-light rooms read larger — and shows every drop and fingerprint while doing it.

Polished

A mechanically polished surface, mirror-flat. Visually the closest tile gets to stone. Slick when wet, so it belongs in dry rooms.

Wood-Look

A digitally printed timber grain, usually in plank formats. Gives the appearance of wood with a ceramic body underneath — no sealing, no swelling in humidity.

Marble-Look

A printed veined surface imitating natural marble. Delivers the look without marble’s porosity, acid sensitivity or re-polishing cycle.

Rustic

A deliberately irregular, textured surface. Reads as natural, weathered stone and holds grip wet, which suits verandahs and courtyards.

Glazed-Vitrified

GVT: a vitrified body with a printed and glazed face. The body gives the low water absorption, the glaze gives the design range — the most common large-format construction.

Every room and finish

If you already know both, go straight there.