Minimal physical progress has been made in our bathroom. Remember where I left you back in July? James was off to New Zealand and while he was away I was racking up a list of all the supplies. The good news is that I’ve found more or less everything I need. In fact I’m even on to finishing touches and am currently coveting this La Redoute blush pink cupboard for storing my lotions and potions. So much so, I’m actually livid it’s out of stock.

While the cabinet isn’t a show-stopper one vital ingredient is missing – the wall tiles. On the project plan (yes, we have one of those) step one is to is to tile the walls in preparation for hanging the basin.

The Look

You’d think finding a plain white matt square tile would be a doddle. Well, it really isn’t.
It’s not helped by the fact I’ve got a stash of cool white hexagonal tiles stacked in my garage just waiting for a bathroom floor. There lies the problem, the floor tiles from Walls and Floors seem to have just the slightest whisper of a greyish blue and every single wall tile sample I order seems to have a very slight tinge of creamy-white. Pop them together and they just seem to clash. I know some folk would think I’m crazy as they’re just two sets of neutral tiles at the end of the day however I feel the contrast would really, really grate on me. I’d like to use grey grout on the floor and white on the walls which I think is going to highlight the difference even more. The header image above was snapped in my living room which has bucketloads of light, while my bathroom only has a piddly window so the contrast is more prominent in the lower level of light. Looking at this image though I really can’t tell the difference, even when I squint, but to the naked eye the difference is truly remarkable 😉

Walls and Floors, Tile Mountain and Tons Of Tiles all seem to be sending me the same off-white samples masquerading as a white one, with varying price points. The project is on hold until I source a suitable bit of ceramic for the walls, or at least until I move on from my mission to match. I mean, does it really matter if they’re slightly different as I’m going to have a skirting board in between the two so they won’t actually meet?

Does such a tile exist? Where are all these people in my Pinterest gallery getting their white-white 15cm x 15cm tiles from? I’m wondering now if I need to have a gloss finish rather than a matt one in order to get a crisp white. Perhaps I’ve utterly lost the plot and have already found what I’m looking for.
Do please share any occasions when you’ve had colour matching woes just to prove I’ve not gone mad. I’m off to another tile store this evening to see if they have anything in store as my online search hasn’t proved too fruitful, but if you have any recommendations I would really love to hear.