Textured tiles from Gemini Tiles – styled three ways [AD]

This post is a paid partnership written in collaboration with Gemini Tiles

A physical mood board is a brilliant way to help visualise initial ideas and inspiration when you’re in the first stages of planning an interior scheme. Not only does it get the creative juices flowing, it can act as a reference going forward in a project – a set of values you can keep coming back to when you’re tempted to go off course, so instead of getting swept away by lots of different things that catch your eye, you can use it to help focus and distil your style. 

Often when I’m coming up with a concept for clients I use photoshop to create mood boards, but there’s something about the process of ripping up pages of magazines, cutting out favourite colours and set-ups, compiling swatches and testing paint pots. It’s about touching the materials, layering textures and thinking about how they would match together in a finished scheme. Find one thing – a piece of fabric, a tile, a paint colour perhaps, it might even be a favourite bottle of hand lotion – that really appeals to you and start to base the rest of your mood board around it, seeking out complementary tones and one or two contrasting hues, so you balance the rough and the smooth, the hard and the soft, the dark and the light.

Get creative, have fun and make it yours. With that in mind, I’ve teamed up with ceramic tile distributor Gemini Tiles to show how you could incorporate textured tiles into a bathroom or kitchen scheme. I’ve created three different mood boards, all with a slightly different feel, so let’s take a closer look…

Mood board 1
For my first mood board I was inspired by the delicate, organic-shaped lines of Gemini’s Stix tiles to create a calming, nature-inspired scheme with a soft palette of neutral tones. Peachy hues and apricot colours, together with dusty blush pinks, create a light, feminine feel. A dark, natural wood floor would add depth and richness to the scheme, while little details such as hammam towels would create a spa-like setting in a bathroom. Some greenery from a few plants would contrast with the off-white colour and finish it off nicely.

Mood board 2
The second mood board is very different – rich, masculine and moody with sleek black features and dark, glazed Stix wall tiles. The subtle hints of contrasting shades and refined textures in the tile reminds me of granite and marble, matching well with leather swatches, stained, almost charred, wood floors and waffled towels. This mood board makes me think of cosy spaces, smokey scents and a gentleman’s barber shop.

Mood board 3
The third scheme, using Gemini’s Bridge Relief tile in graphite, is all about raw, industrial textures, like terracotta and patinated copper. The tile has a distressed look with a pearly finish, full of character and and sensuality. I can imagine, bare, unfinished, plastered walls, white-washed floorboards and utilitarian brass taps. Rough and ready, it would be a space that’s not precious or polished, but designed to get better with time and use.

So which scheme is your favourite? Soft, peachy colours, dark, moody hues, or earthy, terracotta tones? Mine’s ‘Mood board number 1’, shown below – that calming colour palette will definitely be making the cut when I start renovations on my own blank slate of a bathroom. Those light textures really combine beautifully to create a warm, natural feeling – and hopefully somewhere you really want to linger and spend time in. For now it’s a dream away, but it’s always nice to have a good project to look forward to!

All images Cate St Hill, images of tiles in-situ courtesy of Gemini Tiles

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