Paint brands have been naming their 2027 colors all fall. Now the floor gets its turn. On October 7, Forbes reported that Floor & Decor had picked its 2027 Tile of the Year: Capri Oat Matte Porcelain Tile, along with the design trends the retailer expects to see in 2027.
It's a quiet pick: a warm, oat-colored tile that looks like natural limestone. Here's what it is, the trends it fits into, how to lay it, and how many boxes a typical bathroom floor needs.
What Capri Oat actually is
Capri Oat is a porcelain tile made to look like limestone. Floor & Decor uses printing and glazing to get the natural stone look, which it calls NatureMatch. Forbes says the tile is waterproof, works on floors and walls, and is easy to clean.
Ashley Biscan, Floor & Decor's design and trend expert, told Forbes the tile was picked for both value and style: it "was hand-selected because it can deliver on both."
The details from Floor & Decor's product page (checked October 19, 2026):
| Spec | Capri Oat |
|---|---|
| Size | 12 × 24 in nominal (11.73 × 23.58 in actual) |
| Thickness | 8 mm |
| Box | 8 pieces |
| Price | $2.99 per sq ft, $47.84 per box |
| Edges | Rectified |
| Slip resistance | DCOF of 0.42 or more |
| Where | Floors and walls, shower floors, indoors and outdoors (not pool decks) |
Eight 12 × 24 tiles at 2 sq ft each make 16 sq ft per box, which matches the box price ($47.84 ÷ $2.99 = 16).
The tile is part of the wider Capri Collection, which Forbes says also includes subway and square tiles, hexagon mosaics, and pavers for indoor and outdoor use.
The 2027 trends behind it
Floor & Decor's forecast, as reported by Forbes, has three looks:
- The Cortado Kitchen. Named after the half-espresso, half-milk coffee drink, it layers rich coffee browns: cocoa cabinets, creamy countertops and brushed gold fixtures. Floor & Decor calls it an evolution of its earlier Crème Brûlée Kitchen.
- Calm, Cool and Collected. Spa-style rooms with wave- and shell-patterned tile and soft greens and blues, from sage to light teal. Think bathrooms and rooms that open onto a patio.
- Beatnik Bohemian. Saturated color, warm wood and fluted details, including wood wall and ceiling panels.
A soft, oat-colored stone look is easy to pair with all three, which is likely the point.
For bathrooms, Floor & Decor's advice in the same article is porcelain or stone, with honed (matte) finishes and smaller tiles adding slip resistance, because more grout lines give your feet more grip.
How to lay a 12 × 24 tile
A long rectangular tile is usually laid in an offset, or brick, pattern. Tile industry standards have two rules for that, and both apply to Capri Oat because its long side is over 15 inches.
- Keep the offset to a third. Under ANSI A108.02, the offset should be no more than 33% of the tile's length unless the tile maker says otherwise. On a 24-inch tile, that's about 8 inches. Long tiles have a slight natural bow. With a 50% offset, the high point in the middle of one tile's long side sits right next to the low corners of its neighbors, which shows up as uneven edges (lippage).
- Leave at least a 1/8-inch grout joint. For offset patterns with tiles this size, the same standard asks for an average joint of at least 1/8 inch on rectified tile, and wider if the tile has any edge warpage. Floor & Decor lists 1/16, 1/8 and 3/16 inch as suggested joints, so 1/8 inch or 3/16 inch is the safe pick for an offset floor.
How much tile does a bathroom floor need?
Take an 8 × 10 ft bathroom floor: 80 sq ft. If your vanity sits on legs or you're tiling under it, keep the whole area. If not, subtract its footprint.
We ran it through the tile calculator with these assumptions:
- 12 × 24 in tile with a 1/8-inch joint
- 5/16-inch thickness (the closest setting to 8 mm)
- 16 sq ft boxes
- Straight layout with 10% extra for cuts and breakage
- A 1/2 × 1/2-inch notched trowel for the thinset
The results:
| Straight (10% extra) | Diagonal (15% extra) | |
|---|---|---|
| Area to buy for | 88 sq ft | 92 sq ft |
| Tiles | 44 | 46 |
| Boxes of 16 sq ft | 6 | 6 |
| Grout | about 4 lb | about 4 lb |
| Thinset (50 lb bags) | 2 | 3 |
Six boxes give you 96 sq ft, or 48 tiles. At $2.99 per sq ft, that's $287.04 before tax for the tile.
Notice that both layouts land on six boxes. Rounding up to whole boxes often covers the extra for a fancier pattern on a small floor. On a bigger room it won't, so run your own numbers.
Fun fact: Big tiles use far less grout. Grout fills the joints around each tile, and a large tile has much less edge per square foot than a small one. On that same 80 sq ft floor with 1/8-inch joints, 12 × 24 tile needs about 4 lb of grout. Switch to 3 × 6-inch subway tile and it jumps to about 16 lb, four times as much. Change the tile size in the tile calculator and watch the grout line move.
Before you order
- Measure each area on its own. A bathroom with a closet or an L-shaped floor is easier to add up in the square footage calculator.
- Buy from one lot. Check that the shade or lot numbers on the boxes match before you open them.
- Keep a spare box. If a tile cracks in a few years, the exact color may be gone.
- Check the thinset bag. Coverage depends on the trowel and how you back-butter large tiles. The calculator's figures are averages.
Laying a plank or vinyl floor in the Cortado Kitchen instead? The flooring calculator works out boxes, underlayment and transition strips.
Sources
- Forbes: Floor & Decor announces 2027 floor design trends and Tile of the Year
- Floor & Decor: Capri Oat 12 x 24 matte porcelain tile
- Ceramic Tile Foundation: offsets, grout joints and customer expectations (ANSI A108.02)
- Trend signal: news coverage from the past two weeks (Forbes, October 7, 2026). Google Trends was not available for this post.
