Mosaic Tile Defies Its Dated Rap in This Dreamy Nantucket Bathroom

When Eliza Silva hears the words mosaic tile, she doesn’t picture the usual suspects (a Hilton Garden Inn bathroom, a McMansion kitchen’s beige-brown backsplash). Instead, she thinks about Rome. Specifically the four months she lived there studying design and exploring places like the Baths of Caracalla, where the floors are swathed in mesmerizing mosaic tile. “Since then, it’s been in the back of my head as an ideal material for a luxury spa,” says Silva. 

So when she and her husband, David—together they own a restaurant called Galley Beach—were building their dream home in Nantucket in 2020, Silva ordered 600 square feet of mosaic green onyx tile for their bathroom. That translated to around 1,500 12-by-12-inch sheets. Her plan? Saturate the floors and walls in the material. The end result is absolutely mesmerizing. 

But just like with any other tile style, mosaic onyx has its cons. For starters, it’s costly to go the real stone route, even if it is broken up into tiny squares. And although Silva worked through an individual supplier versus a showroom, her order had a 12-month-long lead time. When it did finally arrive, it didn’t look at all like she’d imagined. “We started unpacking it and quickly realized the tile had come from three different stone lots,” she recalls. “We started putting them together, side by side, and none of them matched. It wasn’t looking seamless.” Panic set in. 

Silva sorted out a new order, randomly blending the shades of green so they looked cohesive. And when her original installer walked off the job because the sheets wouldn’t lock together, she took on that role, too. “I physically slammed them together, with stone spreading everywhere, cutting my arms and everything,” she shares. The designer planned out each wall to a T, even accounting for the way sunlight hit each surface. “There are a couple random sheets that didn’t get sorted properly that I can see every once in a while, but it actually worked out perfectly fine,” she says. 

Still, the pros outweighed the cons that came along. For one, the mosaic sheets lock together so tightly that the job required little grout—and superdark, thick lines can get distracting, says Silva. Psst: Fewer grout lines makes it easier to keep the bathroom clean.  

While she was initially considering a green onyx slab for the vanity countertop, too, she had learned the hard way that the color of the material is unpredictable. Instead she chose a honey hue. Silva was also careful with her other finishes, opting for modern Waterworks plumbing fixtures that wouldn’t compete with the rest of the space. A sleek white tub could have made the mosaic tile look dated and cheesy, so she sourced a clay basin that looks like it came straight from Roman baths.

Get the Look

Here are some equally dreamy green mosaic tile designs that are worthy of every wall in your bathroom.