It's the end of tile as we know it (and we feel fine).
Okay, it's not actually the END of tile we're talking about. It's the ENDS: bullnose and pencil lines and Schluter jolly, oh my.
I know, you're feeling overwhelmed. You've heard of a v-cap but it sounds kind of kinky, and is a Schluter jolly anything like schadenfreude, because that's getting a little philosophical for a decorating blog.
Q. Can't we just lay the last piece of tile and be done with it?
A. Yes, you can, young Padowan.
1. Tile into a corner and/or floor to ceiling. Spend some time on Houzz and Pinterest and you will see that designers like to extend backsplash tile as far as you and your budget will let them. Can't figure out how to end the tile? Just keep going til you hit a perpendicular wall or upper cabinet!
Refined LLC
2. Sand the edge of the tile. Some natural stone can be sanded and rounded on site.
Tile edges here are smoothed with a sander. Image courtesy Innovative Construction, Inc.
3. Think outside the box. You can be avant garde and not care about the ends.
Image courtesy Bill Costello, AIA.
Q. Um, I'm really more of a finished kind of person. Can't I please do something to make this look done?
A. Yes, you can have your closure and grout it too. I respect that.
1. Schluter trim. The very best kind of closure, in my book, is Schluter trim. Here's a picture for the engineers among us.
Some of the pretty tile pictures you see on Houzz or Pinterest that look as if they just end don’t just magically end. They use some type of Schluter trim: little metal strips that come in a variety of colors, slide sneakily under the last piece of tile and wrap around the end. They hug around corners, they come rounded, they can intersect with each other, they can be used as a clean transition between tile flooring and another flooring like carpet. Schluter (there are also other brands) is a clean-lined designer-type's best friend, and is also good for those of us whose budgets or floor plans require us to stop the tile before it takes over the whole family room.
Schluter used to end the tiles around the shower niches.
Black Schluter jolly moonlighting as just another line of grout at the top of this backsplash.
2. Chair rail, pencil, half-round, quarter-round tile. I'm of a school of thought that keeps tile trim pieces minimal. If you want a ledge, build yourself a ledge, but not with a big thick tile moulding please.
Though it does have its charm, the chair rail tile trim at the top can be a bit too much. The thin line of tile in the middle is pencil tile. Farmhouse Vernacular.
Pencil tile breaks up the two tile styles in this shower in the Bright Side East Side project.
Half-round tile in a contrasting color is used to finish off this tile wall. Historiska Hem.
Here, quarter-round tile is used to finish of the top of a tile wall. Yellow Brick Home.
3. Bullnose. Bullnose is tile that looks just like the other tile you've laid, but has one subtly rounded edge that belongs on the end of a run. The emphasis is on SUBTLE, friends. Anything not subtle has crossed from bullnose to moulding, and though I never want to say never, I haven't yet met a tile moulding that I wouldn't like to chop off.
Bullnose tile from the Shire Green project. Photo by Michiko Owaki.
As for v-caps, I really just included them because they exist and the word made me giggle. I'm not a fan. Google them if you want to, or go rogue, install one, and send me a picture to convince me.
Meanwhile, here's the executive summary: tile ends shouldn't detract from or overwhelm the tile, but just finish it, subtly and neatly. The finish is not the headliner, and it won't win its supporting actor prize if it doesn't do its job and support.
As my old friend Abby's mom says, "Keep the main thing, the main thing."