Rather than covering your entire bathroom walls with tile, you can achieve a striking effect by only tiling the bottom half. A half-tile bathroom offers a few advantages over a fully-tiled bathroom. You need fewer tiles, which makes installation easier and reduces your material cost.
When choosing half-tiled walls for your bathroom, there is room for creativity and individuality as the options for material combinations are endless. On top of a tiled section of your walls, you can use wallpaper, a beautiful paint color, or wood cladding to achieve a striking combination of materials.
If you are looking for inspiration to create your unique half-tiled bathroom, make sure to take a look at the ideas on the list below. Even if you have a small bathroom, there are some decorative and functional approaches you can take that will create just the right ambiance to make your bathroom design unique and stylish.
Light-colored tiles paired with a dark botanical wallpaper
The gold fixtures in this gorgeous half-tiled bathroom are complemented by the beautiful warm beige wall tile that is applied to the flooring and the bottom half of the bathroom wall. To contrast this warm, metallic color scheme, a dark botanical bathroom wallpaper design is applied to the upper section.
Let your imagination run wild for the upper part of the wall, and you can install some ornate wallpaper or just any contrasting color that matches your style.
Redecorating a half-tiled bathroom with a wallpapered or painted upper section is super easy, as you can keep the tiles and update only the upper area to provide your bathroom design with a whole new look.
via File under Pop
A half-tiled bathroom with subway tile and a greige paint color
By painting the upper half of your bathroom wall in a slightly darker color, you’ll make the light-colored tiles on the lower half the focal point of the room. The white subway tiles in the bathroom below have a glazed edge on top that makes the separation between the wall tiles and the wall paint more apparent.
The white wall tiles with grey grout form the perfect backsplash for the classic green vanity and you can easily imagine this bathroom idea with another wallcolor. There is no right or wrong answer when pairing upper and lower halves together, just make sure your color palette in general works in the space.
Skirting boards make the transition between the beautiful floor tiles and the wall tiling more organic.
Light-colored lower tiles paired with dark grey wood panels
This beautiful half-tiled bathroom pairs crisp white tiling with dark grey shiplap cladding on the top for a contemporary design with a farmhouse touch. The black fixtures stand out against the white tiles and the tiled portion sticks out from the wall just slightly, creating a ledge to place bathroom items on top.
It doesn’t matter whether you install real wood panels or faux wood, although faux wood is probably better equipped to handle the moisture of the bathroom. Either choice can look great set against a light-colored lower wall of bathroom tiles.
via Kvänum
Shower wall tiles paired with half-wall tiling in the rest of the bathroom
It’s probably a good idea to fully tile the inside of shower enclosures, just for the sake of avoiding any kind of water damage. But that still leaves you free to do half tiling in the rest of the bathroom. Just make sure that the lower half tiling scheme matches well with your shower enclosure tiling so you don’t have conflicting areas.
In the example below, vertical brown tiling with a glossy finish is used to cover the entire shower and the half-tiled bathroom walls with a decorative trim on top. The upper portion of the wall is painted in a subtle pink wall color, creating a contemporary look in combination with the black metal shower door.
via Entrance Makleri
Three-quarter tiled shower wall for a contrasting effect
Even though most of the half-tiled bathroom ideas you see on this list will have tile applied halfway, dividing the bathroom walls into two more or less equal sections, you can also opt for a three-quarter tiled wall just like in the below example, with the vertical direction of the tile elongating the space.
This is also an option in case you don’t want a fully tiled shower. Shower water won’t usually reach past the three-quarter point going up your wall, so that can safely be finished with some other material.
Styled by Åsa Copparstad, photographed by Frederic Boucari, for Historiska Hem
Half marble bathroom walls paired with grey paint color on the upper half
If you’re someone who just doesn’t like bright or dark colors, you may want to avoid those possibilities altogether by simply installing neutral colors on both halves of your bathroom walls. In the bathroom below, the neutral color scheme accentuates the beautiful marble tiling on both walls and flooring.
Even when working with a more expensive material like marble, covering only half the wall will still be the more budget-friendly option.
The oversized round mirror behind the bathroom sink adds a modern aesthetic and reflects the separating line of the tile and wall paint, adding a striking visual effect to the elegant bathroom renovation.
via Sjöman Frisk
A half-tiled wall bathroom paired with a subtle cream wall color.
Depending on your personal preference, you can pair your tiled walls with a contrasting paint color, however, a more calm and tranquil effect can be achieved by picking out a lighter color. In the half-tiled bathroom below, the white subway tile with black grout is paired with a soft cream wall color that brightens up the color palette of the space.
styled by Livin Deco, photographed by Jonas Berg, for sale via Stadshem
A striking bathroom interior design with a bold color combination
This is the boldest of the half-tiled bathroom examples on the list, where the straight section of the walls in this attic bathroom space is fully tiled with a gorgeous vertical green tile. The bathtub has a pink limestone treatment, which makes it stand out against the bold color of the tile.
To make the color palette even more striking, the wall area underneath the sloped ceiling is painted in a bright blue color, resulting in a unique and playful design aesthetic.
via File under Pop
White marble tiles on the lower half, cupboards on top
Many homeowners like to use at least part of the bathroom for storage, including things like towels, linens, toilet paper, tissues, and cleaning equipment. This makes great sense since this is the room where all those items will eventually be used.
In the example below, the half-tile bathroom walls feature a beautiful white marble tile, with the upper section painted white and the area above the toilet filled with closed storage cabinets that blend in with the white wall color.
via Alicia Edelman
A half-tiled wall behind the toilet in a neutral color scheme bathroom
Generally speaking, half-tiled bathrooms have an aesthetic reason, or they are applied while they are a bit cheaper than a fully-tiled bathroom. The wet areas in this neutral bathroom design are covered with a beige limestone tile, complemented by a beige wall color on the top half.
The area behind the toilet comes forward to allow for the flushing mechanism to be built in. This creates a ledge for towels and bathroom accessories and the height of this wall component also defines the division line between the tile and wall paint.
via Stadshem
A classic bathroom aesthetic with a contrasting effect
The white tile on the bottom half of this bathroom wall stands out against the contrasting pattern in the black-and-white floor tiling. To make the contrast even stronger, a dark green wall color is applied to the top half of the wall.
Rather than hanging the round wall mirror fully on the painted section, it connects both halves of the wall.
via Alicia Edelman
