The No-Spacer Solution

for grout haters like me, there's a way out. Sometimes. It depends.

I’ve never hidden that tiles aren’t my thing. They can be gorgeous, they can make a space, but something about them really puts me off. And I realised that the main thing I don’t like is the grout.

I’ve tried to face my grout fears by going over the top and dyeing the grout hot pink in our family bathroom — and actually, this worked to a degree.

I don’t hate the grout in there and it really (and inexpensively) zhushed up what would otherwise be the most uninspiring tiling in the world. I’ve also experimented with using no spacers in tiling to reduce grout lines and have learned some lessons along the way.

For context, I really love the look of minimally grouted tiles. I’ve long admired the original late Victorian tiles in my parents’ and in-laws’ bathrooms at home in New England: simple, glossy white subway tiles separated by only the thinnest stripe of grout. These are butt-joined tiles or butted tiling because the tiles were installed as close together as possible. It looks clean and elegant and, due to the inherent imperfection in this kind of tiling, extremely charming.

Victorian butt joined tiles (and that curved corner tile…)

We took this old school, butt-joined method to our Islington project where we used very traditional, English tiles as a backsplash behind a range embedded in a chimney breast. The result was really special:

high quality, traditionally made tiles with crisp arrises that allow for a beautiful, almost imperceptible grout line