The Checkered and Checkerboard Pattern Trend

I’ve always been a fan of checkerboard patterns. As a matter of fact, I have had it in every place I have ever lived since I was in my late teens as a floor. This was probably a result of my traveling to France so often during my teen years and seeing how beautiful it can look in very old French estates and farmhouses. I’ve always been drawn to geometry and symmetry.

An apartment in Germany had black and white checkered floors in the kitchen. When I got married, our apartment also had black and white checkerboard floors in the kitchen and later I also added it to our house (the one we still live in) to the basement bar area and our bathrooms. The basement was black and white checkered tile floors again and the bathrooms with the tan terracotta checkered tiles. More to those below.

Checkered and Checkerboard Pattern Trend

Recently I have seen a spike in brown or rust-checkerboard patterns and tan-checkered patterns which is perfect for fall and I can’t get enough of it. My kids’ favorite stores like Urban Outfitters, Pac Sun, and American Eagle all have had some version of this trending checkerboard revival.

Let me show you some of my favorite finds I came across. This color combo puts a modern twist on it and changes your decor or wardrobe up a bit since it is visually different than the black and white checkerboard pattern combo.

Checkerboard pattern versus harlequin pattern

I have both checkered patterns in our home. A Harlequin checkered pattern floor layout (which is when the squares are on a 90-degree angle) and the checkerboard patterned floor. Let me show you examples.

Sorry, I have to show you my porch again as an example. I’ve been showing it a lot lately and you can see more photos of it if you are new around here in my latest fall decor trends blog post. I decided on a tan Harlequin checkerboard since our bathroom already has had the tan or terracotta-colored checkerboard floor for the past 22 years.

I added the checkered Ikea SIMHALL pillow (not available anymore) to our fireplace area. The colors are perfect for fall.

In my last post I shared this kitchen designed by Claire Brody because of the terracotta floor and today I’m showing it again with the checkerboard patterned backsplash as an example.

Thoughts on other types of checks

Check patterns such as Gingham, Shepherd’s Check, Buffalo Check, and Prince of Wales Check are way more traditional and they all have some sort of lighter check square thrown into the solid-colored square pattern that the checkerboard pattern has.

The graph check is linear and more modern. It is basically a grid pattern and reminds me of math class.

Another even more modern version of the standard checkerboard pattern is the wavy checkered pattern. For me, it’s a bit much and overwhelming to look at. I almost get dizzy looking at that wavy psychedelic pattern. But with that said I have increasingly seen that wavy check pattern in fashion and on fabric as well.

So are you loving this trend as much as I do or have you had enough of it already? Would you add it to your home decor or wear it?