What Sina said. Subway tile is very common because it's so versatile. You can make it look vintage or you can make it look modern, depending on how it's used. For example, here's a vintage look using subway tile, along the same lines as your photos:

But if you straight set the tile, or offset it vertically instead of horizontally, it can go very modern:

You do have to like the look - which I do. I have always loved older homes and when inspiration is taken from the past - less likely to feel "dated" - at least in the expensive surfaces. I have subway tile bathroom I put in nearly 18 years ago and still looks great - except those bright brass towel bars:) Sabrina has a point that it can be made to look more modern too.

Vintage and retro are not instant outdate because they have gone beyond that. Dated is a silly term anyway - a marketing tool - but it applies more to more recent styles that are no longer "on trend" and not so much to vintage styles. A vintage style does work best when it matches the rest of the home. It works best when used in restoring an older home or when the whole home is made to look like an older home. Many 'farmhouse" style homes attempt to evoke the past with vintage style surfaces.

And the best thing about subway tile is it's always fashionable. Like the little black dress, subway tile is the best choice if you want your bathroom to look great and retain its décor value through the years.

Thank you all so much!!! Great comments ...I am convinced.

Great post!

Subway tile is simple and classic. It works with so many different styles and has transitioned well over the years. As stated above, it is a timeless design element and wise addition to almost any kitchen, bath, or laundry room palette.

Something to consider in any home design is the context surrounding the more timeless elements. Trendy - and soon to be outdated- accents can overpower an otherwise well designed room. A thoughtful approach to timeless design is to keep the majority of finishes fairly neutral and transitional while leaving the "pop" in a space to the accessories, furnishings, and paint.

Happy designing!

So i have a cuestion: a 3x6 glass subway tile can add a modern vibe to a traditional kitchen or does it make it look ridiculous? I have traditional cabinets and granite and im in love with a 3x6 glass taupe tile instead of the typical ceramic cream subway tile

I think the look for bathrooms is classic for the subway tiles, but their use in the kitchen I think is only currently a trend especially the white ones.

a word of caution. right now timeless is in style. 15-20 years ago timeless was NOT in style. you could walk into a tile shop and there wasnt a subway tile in sight. which means timeless will once again go out of style (and be dated: which means an observer will be able to tell when you redid your kitchen or bath.)

i think the reason there is so much tail chasing about timeless vs dated-in-the-making these days is *we* are the ones who have gotten burned and fear getting burned again, on a 15 year cycle. we're trying to stop time in its tracks.

good luck with that!

we have two choices. to do what we love, styles and trends be damned, or be frugal with our spending on surfaces which will 'have' to be redone when it comes time to sell or to please ourselves if we are trend conscious.

Karla, I love it in the kitchen and have it in mine

mon i completely agree with you. all of my elder relatives houses (grandmothers and great aunts) had bathrooms with subway tile or squares if they updated in the 50s/60s but none had kitchens with subway tiles. none. zero. it might have been a matter of money more than inclination tho. a bathroom needed tile, a kitchen did not. when we see photos of lush victorian kitchens with (subway) tile everywhere there is not a good reason to think they weren't the exception rather than the rule. they would have if they could have afforded it. just as its easy for us to look at houzz photos and think everybody is doing what we're seeing... when most cant nearly afford 1/4 of it.

I just thought your dream cabinets and then complimenting countertops suppose to be the shine of your kitchen because they get more use. I feel like now when you put the subway tiles in as your backsplash they dominate the space and you have to choose everything else that coordinates with the subway tile backsplash, but to me I think it's suppose to only compliment like the paint and hardware. It helps in the bathrooms with the ''clean'' look but in the kitchen does nothing for the ''gather/ eat/ home'' feel to me I aim for in that space.

FWIW, a relatively inexpensive house built in 1919 in Brooklyn had white subway tiles in the kitchen as well as a cupboard so white subway tiles were definitely used for kitchens 100 years ago.

As to whether they are timeless, who can say since they are on trend now and weren't in the past. That's also true of Chanel bags which are considered timeless but you couldn't give one away 20 years ago :-)

mon - FWIW, I think subway tiles in the kitchens of 100 years ago were part of the "sanitary" look for kitchens. I don't know whether they appeared in higher end kitchens for the middle class but I do know they were in the houses built for working class people in Brooklyn in that era (just post WW I). I think there was a lot of emphasis on "germs" and the people populating these newly built homes would be coming to the "suburbs" to escape the tenements and would have been part of the Settlement Movement which attempted to inculcate the idea of sanitary and hygienic living to these people. The homes built in Brooklyn in that era were the "streetcar suburbs" for the working class along the subway lines that were newly built in the borough. They weren't as elegant as the older Queen Ann neighborhoods of Kensington which had more gracious homes. Many of the more modest homes were either two family homes (so the landlord could better afford it) or were attached homes (which were cheaper to build).

I think subway tiles would also have been used in the kitchens of the very rich but that would be because those kitchens were only used by the servants and so utility and cleanliness were be would would be desired - much like restaurant kitchens are designed for that purpose now.

Such great comments!

Subway tiles are clearly not a naturally luxurious choice- otherwise they would not have appeared in subways. We have romanticized the look - which means we will eventually grow tired of it.

By we, I mean society. An individual may well buy into the look today and never tire of it. But other people making decisions ten years from now will likely not choose what we chose. They never do. There are always changes when it comes to fashion, and the way we are tilting kitchens today is pretty clearly a fashion- if you doubt - think about travertine backsplashes, feature tile over the range and tile laid in a diagonal vs. chevron tile.

rita, absolutely.

i'm good with my choices... white subway, marble look counters, black and white checkerboard floors. they match my house (1870) so they might have better legs than if my house was a more typical suburban colonial. but i know that anything else i might have put in 4 years ago would be out of step by the time i sell, might as well go with something i like and is house appropriate.

My first home from the 1950's had the square white tiles in the kitchen with the black accent strip:)

People see things differently. I think basic subway tile is popular because it does not dominate the space, leaving the pretty countertops to be the star - of course contrasting grout can change the look to a more noticeable feature. My subway tile is the same color as the walls and not particularly noticeable. It is easier to clean then the painted wall I had previously - which makes it practical. When you clean your own house, you want it to be as easy as possible - one reason I have tile wainscot in most of my bathrooms too.

I just realized I wrote more about kitchens than bathrooms on a bathroom thread- oops.

nini, an 1870 house- with those choices, be-still my heart. And yes, I think it's those us with characterless boxes who have to figure out how to make things look nice without getting twee- it's pretty tricky.

Circling back to the mantra, I don't think you can go wrong if you inherently love something. Of course that kind of self confidence generally comes with age - when I decorated my first adult apartment, I wanted it to be stylish - and so the couches and other decorative stuff I could "afford" to buy were of that era but not really my taste and I was happy to discard them when I could justify it.

Conversely there are styles and things which I have loved since college - Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Mission, Arts & Crafts and those items which I accumulated over the years in those styles I still love and keep - whether or not they are on trend or not.

I am repurposing (with the approval of my designer) most of my "good" furniture - i.e. those items which I bought because they appealed to me irrespective of what was on trend at that time - and almost all of them were vintage when bought :-) So they are being reupholstered and/or being refinished in terms of the wood. I am fine with living wth stuff that I have been living with for many years.

I am really not the kind of person who is constantly redecorating though - a picture hung or a sofa placed generally stays there unlike some friends who love to move things around.Perhaps if I were more that kind of person, I would be more into trendier decorative stuff but I am more of the do it and enjoy it and live with it type. I don't really enjoy the process of selecting paint or knobs as it is pretty stressful - it's not something I would ever want to do as relaxation or a hobby :-)

How many people genuinely loved avocado green or harvest gold back in its day? How many liked pickled pink oak cabinets? LOL

Subway tile is a classic. Always. And when used in the right house, it will stay a classic. My brand new house is craftsman inspired so I used subway tile in both my bathrooms.

In my guest bath I used traditional white subway tile with hexagonal floor tile.

And in my master bath, I used marble subway tile which is also a classic along with the basket weave pattern on the floor.

In too many older homes, they had "updated" to whatever was the trend at the time. All that did was make the house look more dated than if they had kept what was appropriate for the time period of the original house.

I think the look for bathrooms is classic for the subway tiles, but their use in the kitchen I think is only currently a trend especially the white ones.

Well if that's the case then my very first house built in 1926 must have been trendy since the kitchen had...you guessed it...the original white subway tile!