30 Twists on a Subway Tile Backsplash
Both old-school and perpetually on-trend, subway tile backsplashes are here to stay. Which take on the treatment best suits your kitchen’s personality? Read on for our favorite, designer-approved riffs on this classic look.
How Will Subway Tile Spice Up Your Kitchen?
Realtors, builders and designers alike report that our relationship with subway tile is a love affair for the ages. Nearly 120 years after their creation by George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge and their debut in the New York City subway system, these 3x6-inch beauties feel fresh and functional in residential spaces all over the world. Making a match that will last in your space is all about balancing palette, finish, arrangement and scale — and we have 30 brilliant recipes to inspire you to do just that.
Use Medium Blue to Transition Between Hues
This Southern California kitchen channels crisp coastal chic with ease, thanks to its gleaming white walls and cabinets, driftwood-inspired flooring and rich blue island. The subway tiles’ smoke-blue glaze is a tonal half-step between that island and the far brighter hues of the rest of the room — and they perform the neat trick of integrating those contrasting tones as the eye moves into the kitchen.
Complement Cabinets With Gradient Tiles
This luxurious butler’s pantry is all about the moody, solid coastal blue that carries across its walls and upper and lower cabinets, then develops into a gorgeously mottled, counter-to-ceiling backsplash with hand-glazed gradient tiles. These sophisticated subway tiles both add dimension to the space’s oceanic tones and contribute a bit of opulence that pairs beautifully with the brass pendant and cabinet hardware.
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Add Interest With a Herringbone Pattern
This storm-blue kitchen delivers even deeper dimensionality with a hand-glazed subway tile backsplash arranged in an intricate herringbone pattern that is even more classic than the tiles that comprise it. (By the way — herringbone patterns date back to ancient Egypt!) For just a hint of pattern in a monochromatic arrangement like this one, reach for tone-on-tone grout that creates minimal contrast with your tile of choice.
Lend a New Build Layered Farmhouse Style
This contemporary take on farmhouse style is all about the combination of confident, super-saturated blue cabinets with softer pastels, such as the mint green enamel on the Marais barstools and the counter-to-ceiling subway tiles in barely-there gray with a hint of sea foam. To nail this look in your space, choose a bold, primary color to anchor the room, then look for tiles in a pastel, secondary color that you can complement with accessories.
Take a Sharp Right Turn
Don’t let the toasty, neutral hue of this kitchen’s subway tiles fool you: This running-bond arrangement is a series of exclamation points, thanks to its vertical orientation. Bonus: That unexpected tweak creates graphic, 90-degree angles with the kitchen’s quartet of floating shelves and its sculptural range hood.
Brighten Your Space With a Squeeze of Citrus
This midcentury-modern kitchen’s sunny backsplash evokes fresh-squeezed OJ and breaks up a bank of sleek white cabinets with a custom floating shelf and butcher block countertop. We love the clean, contemporary look of the horizontal straight stack, a tile arrangement installers say is the best way to showcase the tiles themselves.
Update a Classic Space With Offset Zellige Tile
This 1930 Atlanta bungalow’s remodeled kitchen still oozes old-school cool in the form of its existing antique green sink. Its chic new cabinets, on the other hand, feature Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke and tailored brass hardware that complements a new bridge faucet. And the backsplash boasts handmade zellige subway tiles that add subtle dimension and a hit of contemporary flair.
Accent an Industrial Space With Straight-Stacked White Tiles
This striking Savannah kitchen features seamless, floor-to-ceiling cabinetry with robin’s-egg blue lacquer and an upcycled “island” with picture-perfect patina; in a boldly designed space like this one, subway tile should stand back and let those major players take center stage. An apt (and contemporary) supporting character? This straight-stacked array of white subway tile that finishes the backsplash in subtle style.
Use Pattern to Give a Neutral Space Texture
One of the easiest ways to mix up your kitchen’s subway tile backsplash design is by laying tile in a fun, unexpected pattern, such as this herringbone design featured in HGTV Magazine. By pairing the design with simple shelves and black-and-white art, the charming tilework remains the star of the space.
Freshen Up With Leafy Green
An obvious way to add a personal touch to a subway tile backsplash is by ditching basic white and opting for a favorite color instead. In this Craftsman kitchen, the vibrant green backsplash contributes a cheery accent to the Shaker-style cabinets and stainless steel appliances.
Or, Play With Variations
But why stick to just one color when you can give your kitchen a totally unexpected look simply by mixing variant hues of the same color? In this transitional kitchen, blue tiles with different levels of saturation are tied together by white upper cabinets and solid blue lower cabinets.
Give Your Kitchen a Beveled Edge
To liven up a basic backsplash, consider a beveled tile. "Having the tile done this way added a lot of dimension to the walls,” explains designer Tobi Farley. “It adds texture to the neutral kitchen, and the varying shades of bisque and sand complement the Roman shade perfectly. I love working with tile in new and different ways — it can really add to a design!"
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Throw In a New Pattern
Add a little depth and interest to your subway tile design with an insert of a unique tile for contrast like this delicate tile pattern framing out the cooktop.
Try a Textural Gray Tile
This ostensibly neutral transitional kitchen is all about subtly rich finishes that benefit from close scrutiny. The translucent blue stain on its lower cabinets and island reveal rich graining in the wood beneath it; the upper cabinets, in turn, feature crisp chrome trim that evokes the work of a shipwright, and the intricate parquet flooring underfoot is downright stunning. The pebbled, pearl-gray surface of its subway tiles, now? That provides a velvety backdrop for the kitchen’s quiet luxury.
Color Block Around the Range
The statement range in this cool, coastal California kitchen merits a style moment of its own, and the gradient-glazed subway tiles to either side of its blue tile backsplash frame it perfectly. Deploy vertical color blocking to highlight a wide, symmetrical installation, such as the gold-grated upper cabinets and spacious drawered lower cabinets flanking the range here.
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Use Dark Grout to Emphasize a Contemporary Pattern
From the upper and lower cabinets’ bold color blocking to a trio of curvaceous pendants that emphasize the right angles behind them, this high-concept kitchen is all about juxtaposition and geometry. The darker grout anchoring (and drawing attention to) its straight-stacked subway tiles creates a graphic grid that supports those oversized forms — clever, no?
Carry Marble Tiles Up and Across a Feature Wall
Marble subway tiles have made a splash in luxurious baths for some time now, and we’re ready to see more of them in public spaces like this one. That paler stone contrasts beautifully with the black marble countertop beneath it, and it also echoes the much bigger slab of marble atop the waterfall-edge kitchen island. The effect? Pure opulence.
Let White Tile, Dark Grout and Half-Offset Tiles Evoke History
With wraparound floating shelves that carry across the picture window, ebony-stained seating and stainless-steel appliances, this is unquestionably a 21st-century kitchen. That said, historic touches like its flush-mounted lights and sconces, shiplap island detailing and stone-cold classic subway-tile backsplash lend it timeless character.
Pair Stacked White Zellige Tiles With White Grout
The white-on-white shiplap ceiling, window treatment and cabinetry in this contemporary kitchen let the subtle beauty of the white oak floating shelves, flooring and island catch the eye. The white-on-white zellige subway tiles that rise to the ceiling and echo its lines in a horizontal stack, in turn, contribute a rich but subtle texture that also provides just a hint of distinction between the kitchen and other areas. An application like this one helps define functional spaces in open-plan homes.
Give a Smaller Kitchen a Strong Color Story
Speaking of defining spaces in open-plan homes, consider how effectively the horizontally stacked chartreuse subway tiles and teal flat-panel cabinetry establish the kitchen in this contemporary loft. Such a vivid choice would be a lot of look in a room with additional walls and a lower ceiling — but in this soaring home, swinging for the fences is just right.
Take Subway Tile All the Way to the Floor
This chic and colorful Los Angeles bungalow kitchen demonstrates what Heins and LaFarge knew a century ago: White subway tile spans entire walls beautifully and just so happens to be a breeze to clean. This traditional, white-on-white running arrangement provides negative space that showcases details like the green window hardware and less-is-more upper cabinetry and floating shelves; it also gleams beautifully in all that Southern California sunlight. An enveloping yet understated choice like this one gives seemingly small design details a big spotlight.
Choose White Tiles With Sheen for a Luxe Coastal Look
Speaking of subway tiles that gleam beautifully in the sunlight, this vacation-cottage kitchen on Georgia’s Sea Island dazzles like an oyster’s interior, thanks to its zellige subway tiles’ reflective glaze. This cabinet-to-ceiling backsplash is an effective tone-on-tone frame for the matte hood and upper cabinets’ elegant crown molding, and it initiates a tropical theme that the island’s whitewashed bamboo barstools echo with ease.
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Try a Tiled Take on the Copper Trend
Traditionalists and trendsters are singing the praises of copper backsplashes, which offer more warmth than silvery metals such as chrome and stainless steel and a more unexpected tone than brass, bronze and gold. If you fancy a surface that will age gracefully into a vintage look, know that unfinished copper subway tiles will develop a dazzling patina over the years. For contemporary drama like the feature wall in this kitchen, look to copper laminate or metal-effect subway tiles that won’t require regular polishing to stave off oxidation.
Wrap an Eclectic Kitchen in Large, Low-Contrast Marble Tiles
This light-as-a-feather, contemporary coastal kitchen features cloud-toned, offset marble subway tile that carries from the counters to the ceiling; the cumulative (cumulus?) effect is casual and luxe all at once. Using a natural material for the walls and engineered surfaces for the countertops and island minimizes cleanup, and all that handsome stone serves as a sophisticated backdrop for the playful accessories arranged on the kitchen’s floating shelves.
Cultivate Boho Chic With Neutral, Soldier-Stacked Tiles
Organic textures abound in this rustic-contemporary cabin kitchen, where three rows of soldier-stacked subway tiles with toasty beige glaze create a backsplash and visual bridge between the butcher-block countertop and two wraparound floating shelves. Try a treatment like this one when you hanker for a kitchen that celebrates natural and upcycled materials (How about that gorgeously weathered table repurposed as a one-of-a-kind island?) without tipping over into kitschy-cutesy territory.
Or, Go Wild With Vividly Glazed Zellige Tiles
The dynamic, winningly irregular teal zellige tiles in this verdant kitchen are just as sun-loving as the plants trailing from its floating shelves. This lively look is all about celebrating the distinct look of each tile, and the not-too-perfect grout between them does just that. The barely there green paint above the backsplash, in turn, echoes the teal’s deeper tones.
Accent a Traditional Rustic Space With Off-White Tile and Dark Grout
Organic elements and reclaimed beams add variation and warmth to this atmospheric kitchen, and its creamy subway-tile backsplash and gently contrasting grout complement those rustic, darker wood selections.
Deploy High-Contrast Herringbone in Close Quarters
Give your imagination permission to run wild by considering the look-at-me pairing of deep green subway tile and fuchsia cabinetry in this exuberant home bar nook. Who cares about square footage when you can reimagine classic materials in a statement space?
Frame a Feature Panel With White-on-White Subway Tile
With vertical hardware and Shaker-inspired cabinetry, this monochromatic kitchen is all about right angles. By contrast (no pun intended), the diagonal chevrons inlaid to frame the range and its hood add movement and grayscale variation — and classic, white-on-white subway tile and grout in a traditional running pattern let those chevrons draw the eye.