June 2021 - Just installed Walker Zanger Cafe 3x6 subway tile, Milk color, in my kitchen today: sink splash, laundry splash, and range splash from stovetop up to ceiling. After consulting with tile man and experimenting with spacers, we opted for no spacers! (Dear Diary!) This was because the intentional and beautiful irregularity of the Cafe subway tile edges means that when placed next to each other, they naturally create the look of a 1/16" grout line. So adding even a 1/16" spacer resulted in closer to a 1/8" grout line. For me personally, this was more grout than I wanted to see in my kitchen splashes, so the optical 1/16 grout line was perfect all by itself.
Next agonizing choice: Grout color! Our kitchen is transitional and will have green upper and lower cabinets. (Yes, super trendy, but I swear I liked green before it was hot. Or cool, should I say! 😆) .
Our countertops are quartz, LG Viatera "Lumina." (Very subtle grey and taupe veins.) .
So we quickly made samples of the following colors in Laticrete Permacoat grout (sanded): Silver Shadow, Light Pewter, Marble Beige, Bleached Wood, and Bright White. We even compared a sample of Prism Rolling Fog from a bathroom mockup.
The winner: Bright White! Yes! All that work to come around to white. My fear with Bright White had been that maybe the handmade look of the tile would disappear. But my other greater fear was that *any* other color in that room, even in grout, would be introducing too many layers of color, one on top of the other (wood floor, green cabinet, Lumina, splash, green cabinet)! So Bright White was a conservative and timeless choice, and it looks great! It was well worth looking at all the samples to be 100% sure.
Good luck with Walker Zanger Cafe tile! I'm very glad I chose it.
Q
hood
Q