Hexagon tiles.

The hex has never really left. Penny hex floors in tessellated black, white and red were standard in Federation-era Australian hallways and bathrooms. The shape kept reappearing through the mid-century, the seventies, and again strongly from around 2015. The reason is simple — the geometry tiles cleanly and the eye reads the result as deliberate rather than busy.

Sizing guide. 50mm penny hex on mesh sheets — the right choice for shower floors, where the small format gives grip and handles falls to waste. 100mm hex for splashbacks, feature walls and powder room floors. 200mm and above for feature areas of larger floors and ensuite walls.

Where hex works best. Powder rooms (the small footprint suits a small tile). Ensuites, especially as a shower-floor feature against larger wall tiles. Laundries. Kitchen splashbacks where the geometry stands up to busy joinery without competing with it.

Grout colour changes everything. A white hex with white grout reads as a textured surface. The same hex with charcoal grout reads as a graphic pattern. Make this decision before you order, not after.

Mesh sheets vs individual tiles. Hex below about 100mm is supplied on mesh sheets — typically 300×300mm sheets of 25–36 hexagons. This makes installation faster and keeps spacing consistent. Hex above 100mm is laid individually. Sheets are cheaper to install but harder to cut around irregular edges.

Wastage. Allow 15% for hex, against 10% for square tiles. Every cut at a wall edge wastes more material because the hex has six edges rather than four, and matching the angle on the cut is fiddly.

Grout joint width. Modern installs typically run 1.5–2mm with colour-matched grout — clean, sharp, contemporary. Traditional installs use 3mm with white or grey grout. Pick one approach and commit.

Ordering. Order all sheets in one batch — hex prints vary more between dye lots than plain colours. Ask for a sample sheet, not a single tile, so you can see the pattern across the joints. Order samples →