Tile is where a kitchen or bathroom gets its personality — the backsplash you notice every morning, the shower that makes the room feel like a hotel. It's also, in a shower, where the most expensive failures quietly start. So this guide is two things at once: how to choose tile you'll love, and how to make sure the part you can't see is done right.
Buy the tile for how it looks. Hire the contractor for what's behind it.
The materials, plainly
- Porcelain — the workhorse. Dense, hard and water-resistant, ideal for shower walls and floors, and now available in large formats. Your safest all-around pick.
- Ceramic — softer and more affordable than porcelain; great for backsplashes and low-traffic walls.
- Natural stone (marble, travertine) — gorgeous and one-of-a-kind, but porous: it needs sealing and can etch from acids. A statement, with maintenance.
- Glass — light-catching and luminous; perfect as a backsplash or an accent band rather than a whole shower.
- Zellige & handmade — artisan tiles with glossy, slightly irregular faces and tonal variation. The character look of 2026.
The shower truth: waterproofing
Here's what most homeowners never hear: tile and grout are not waterproof. Water works through grout over time, so what actually keeps your walls and the room below dry is the system behindthe tile — a proper waterproof membrane, a correct slope to the drain, and careful detailing where the niche, bench and curb meet. Done wrong, you get rot and mold you can't see until it's a five-figure problem. This is the one place in a bathroom you never cut corners, and it's exactly why who tiles your shower matters as much as the tile itself.
Backsplash: small surface, big impact
A kitchen backsplash is a low-cost, high-visibility upgrade. A few decisions shape it:
- Where to splurge: the wall behind the range is the natural spot for a statement — a slab, a pattern, or a special tile.
- How high: standard runs to the upper cabinets; full-height to the underside of the uppers (or a stone slab matching the counter) reads more custom.
- Coordinate, don't match: the backsplash should complement your counters — see quartz vs. granite vs. quartzite when you're choosing both.
The 2026 looks worth your money
- Large-format porcelain — fewer grout lines, a calmer, bigger-feeling space; the heart of the "tile drenching" look (same tile on floor, walls and shower).
- Zellige & handmade — texture and light on shower feature walls and backsplashes.
- Fluted & textured tile — vertical ribbed profiles on feature walls, niches and vanity backsplashes.
- Warm palettes — creams, sandy taupes, terracotta, mushroom and warm greige, replacing cool grays.
- Familiar tile, fresh layout — vertical or stacked subway instead of the default running bond.
What it costs, installed
- Bathroom tile: about $15–$25 per square foot, material plus setting.
- Kitchen backsplash: about $800–$1,500.
- Walk-in shower (tile is a big share): about $5,000–$15,000.
Intricate patterns, small mosaics and natural stone cost more to set than large-format tile — labor, not just material, drives the number. See the bathroom cost guide for the full breakdown, or get a quick range from our cost calculator.
Grout & the long game
Grout choice matters more than people think: large-format tile means fewer grout lines to clean, and the right grout (and sealing natural stone) keeps a tile job looking new for years. We spec it to the application, not by habit.
Planning the tile for a kitchen or bath? See our bathroom and kitchen remodeling work, or tell us about your project— we'll get both the look and the waterproofing right.