Choosing Your Grout Color

Picking out the best color of grout for your completed project is extremely important. The wrong color can destroy your piece. This is true for mosaic art and for residential and commercial installations.

First understand that grout is just a filler. It is not an adhesive! It is simply for you to fill in the gaps between your tiles. It will smooth out the overall look of your piece and will hide some ragged edges on your glass.In the tile industry there is a rule of thumb for grout colors. Gray and brown are always good choices with varying shades depending upon your overall color. If you are using mainly cool colors then choose gray grout, if using warm colors then use brown grout. For an overall light effect, choose a light colored grout and for darker tiles use a dark grout. So if you do your piece in mostly a rich cobalt blue with a hint of light aqua and white thrown, a dark gray grout is recommended. The cobalt is a cool color and dark tile. If you choose to do your piece in varying shades of reds, oranges, and yellows, then a medium tone brown grout is recommended.

It gets tricky when you use both warm and cool colors in the same area. For instance, suppose you are creating a mosaic of a brown duck floating in a pool of water with a blue sky. Here your focal point is the brown duck which is warm and the background is the water and sky are a cool blue and blue green. You really want the duck to stand out not the water and sky. You could grout in two colors (one for the duck and one for everything else) but that is a lot of work. To pick the proper grout color for this piece focus on the duck. If you were to use anything but brown then your duck would be severely fractured (you would see every individual tile piece). In order to keep your duck whole, you must use a brown grout. Now envision the background with brown grout. It will be fractured a bit if you use the wrong shade of brown. If your background is light then use a light to medium brown grout. If it is medium to dark then use a corresponding grout color. This allows you to keep your duck as the focus while incorporating the background into the entire scene.

Using the neutral grout colors will make it to where people don't see the grout, only the flow of the tiles. However, what if you want to make your grout joints stand out? Black and white will do this. Black grout is an amazing choice for those brightly colored tiles. It will give your piece a leaded stained glass feel. White will fracture your entire piece so use it sparingly. I only recommend white grout when most of your tiles are white. It is not as pleasing to the eye. These are great grout colors to use when creating a geometric piece since they really accent the grout joints and pull out the geometry of the piece.

Grout colorants can give you a ton of options for grout color. Grout colorants are a strong concrete dye that resists fading. A little goes a long way! Just a teaspoon will tint 2 cups of grout to the dark shades. Adding it to white grout gives you brighter colors. Some people will add it to gray grout. You will still get the colors but they are muted. You can also add the colorant to thinset and concrete (like your stepping stones).

Try mixing different colors together too. Mix terra cotta grout with brown colorant. This takes the edge off of the redness of the terra cotta giving you a rich grout color. Also mix black grout with white grout to achieve gray tones. How about mixing blue and red colorant to get a beautiful purple? Maybe add sandstone colorant to terra cotta grout for a rich goldenrod grout.

The possibilities are endless! Remember to mix enough of your grout to complete your entire project if using grout colorant. You won’t be able to copy the exact shade for the next batch. Grout can ruin a piece or installation if you are not careful. However, it can greatly enhance your mosaic project when done correctly. You will definitely see a completely different picture after grouting.

Glass Mosaic Tile for the Kitchen

Adding glass tile to your kitchen is both aesthetic and valuable. The kitchen is a gathering place for many families. Mosaic tiles are beautiful to look at and make this space even more comfortable for dinners and parties. Glass tile also increases the value of your home even though you can spend as little as $2 per square foot on the tiles.

Many people have glass mosaic tile installed on their backsplash area. This is the space behind the counters between the top and bottom cabinets. You can usually tile this with 30 square feet or less of product, making it an economical project.

The space behind the stove is usually treated with special consideration. This is a larger area so feel free to do something a little more decorative here. If you choose to do a blend of metallic glass and vitreous glass on the backsplash then try just doing a solid metallic glass behind the stove. You can even do an extravagant mosaic picture for this larger space.

The backsplash is the most popular place for glass tile but there are other areas that these little tiles work well. You need to know that the small mosaic tiles will make a space look larger so using these tiles in a small kitchen will dramatically increase the look of the room size. Many glass tiles can be installed on a floor. Check with the supplier to see which ones are suitable. Installed in a small kitchen, mosaic tile will visually enlarge the size of the space.

Another idea would be to install a custom blend of glass tiles on a complete wall in your kitchen. This could be done on a wall that is opposite your counter space or even the part of the wall that touches your backsplash area. If your kitchen has the dining area combination then the glass tiles are a great way to separate the two areas.

Tiling the wall under a bar in the kitchen is a perfect application. When people sit at the bar they tend to kick the wall. This will eventually wear down the wall and keep it scuffed up. Glass tile is very durable and can withstand the daily knocks. Since it is glass, it is very easy to clean by using your everyday household cleaners.

Adding sparkle and elegance to your kitchen can be affordable and fun. Every kitchen is different but all can be tiled from floor to ceiling if the owner desires.

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