How Joanna Gaines Makes Subway Tile Work In Any Room

It's no secret that Joanna Gaines is a tile girl. In particular, subway tile is one of the celebrity interior designer's go-to styling choices for kitchen backsplashes for her projects on HGTV's "Fixer Upper" and even when the franchise moved to the Magnolia Network. "You'll never have to ask me twice for it (because) subway tile is my favorite. It's timeless, classic, and ... it stands the test of time," Gaines wrote on Instagram to explain her obsession with subway tiles.

Such obsession has led to America's renewed appreciation for subway tiles, so much so that going crazy with the material is considered a surefire way to decorate one's home like Gaines. However, while subway tile is the backsplash material of choice for Gaines and her husband — her "Fixer Upper" co-star — she does not limit its use to the kitchen alone. The home decorator has also strategically utilized the rectangular, glazed ceramic tile in other parts of the house.

In "Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse," she notably used black subway tiles on a dining room divider. She paired it with white grout to give the wall a mixture of classic and modern touches. In another project, Gaines combined white subway tiles with gray grout to make a small bathroom feel bigger. Like Gaines, you can make subway tiles work in any room of your house with the right approach.

The thing that makes Joanna Gaines' styling hack work in any room is she doesn't limit it to the typical subway pattern that mimics how bricks are arranged. She mixes it up now and then to achieve a certain style that would cohesively go with the overall design of a room. In her dining room divider project, she used the horizontal stacked pattern for a clean and upscale look. Plus, it's much easier to pull off than having to cut several tiles for the traditional brick arrangement to cover the edge of the wall.

In another kitchen project, Gaines opted to arrange long, slender subway tiles in a trendy herringbone design above the cooktop and all the way to the back of the hood to quickly draw attention to the shift in pattern from the adjacent brick-laid subway tiles. This also creates an illusion that the cooktop is a separate working area from the rest of the counter. 

At $7 to $35 per square foot, you can incorporate subway tiles into your next room makeover without breaking the bank. The herringbone, basket weave, and vertical stacked with border patterns can make a good statement wall inside the bedroom due to the busy, geometric lines they form. To further enhance their visual complexity, use contrasting grout colors — light shades for darker tiles or darker shades for lighter tiles. You can do the same for any wall inside your home. Or, you can stick to the standard pattern and let subway tile work its magic.