I’m trying to decide on the best / latest / most popular tile to install in bathrooms these days on both the floor and the walls. All opinions (including fashion design and artwork) welcome. What I’ve looked at so far:
sandstone
ceramic
travertine
marble
onyx
granite
mystera
quartz
glass
Thanks for your time.
Replies
I like slate. Needs to be sealed though. The slate somehow feels warmer underfoot and the texture is nice to walk on when wet.
porcelain
Porcelain for certain. I hate installing it though because it's incredibly difficult to drill through. I think it's worse than granite! (And that's supposed to be the hardest material save diamond.)
Porcelain because all of the others are available in porcelain without the hassles of real stone, etc. It is very hard to tell the difference from stone and good porcelain. There is a retail tile store in Portland that has stone on the floor and some is intermixed with porcelain. Most people don't see the difference. Remember its on the high end side but still less than stone.
Jim Carlin, csi
Thanks everybody for writing in. Hadn't thought of porcelin, though. Don't even know if I've seen it before but then like one of you said, maybe I saw it and didn't even know it. What's the difference between porcelin and ceramic anyway? If anybody comes across a good web site for comparisons please pass it on. Thanks.
Porcelain is a type of ceramic tile. To be classified as a porcelain the only requirement is to have a water absorption of less than.05%. Ceramics can have a absorption greater than .05 to 20%. This group is further broken into three different categories. Jim Carlin,csi
Thanks, Jim
http://www.americanolean.com My supplier features two of this large company's porcelain tiles in earth tones for less than $2 sqft. I have a sample in the garage. I'll look for it and post it's name tomorrow.
I'm installing glass mosaic in my shower right now. I like the look of it.
Bathroom floors? Still the best are (performance maintenance durability) porcelains and ceramics. These materials have come such a long way in the past 5-10 years in terms of faux-stone look and being just plain damn nice looking. You can certainly pay for the "niceness". Just make sure they are floor rated, some of the purdier ones are wall-rated only.
For walls, glass is huge. Sometimes for the whole wall, mostly as an accent. More installers screw up glass installations though so read the friggin manufacturer's friggin installation instructions. Glass is NOT porcelain or stone, and not all glass is the same. So they can have their own considerations when being installed.
Natural stone is the most desired, but often time folks change over the faux-stone porcelains once they see what porcelains are out there.
Travertine is still popular, just make sure it's filled with an epoxy and not a cementatious filler. The cement fillers can pop out over time.
Marble? Not often. Most shy away due to the softness and staining.
Quartz? Only seen it for countertops.
Back to porcelains. Some are timeless looking. Not faddish, they'll look good forever. I've seen a lot of people requesting metallic ceramics. They look cool, both when used in "over the top" installations and when used in moderation. Not sure if it's a "timeless" look through. But they are cool looking.
For floors, large format in a diagonal pattern is common. It can open up a narrow room and ease the eye.
If tight grout joints, think rectified. More expensive, but much easier to install with a minimal grout line.
Under floor electric radiant is big, it has been growing for the past 10-12 years. The materials today make installation so easy, but people still screw it up. And screwing it up usually means it's trashed. It's very difficult to repair a poor installation.
Mongo
Edited 10/27/2007 2:39 pm ET by Mongo
Thanks everybody. Looks like I've got my homework cut out for me.
Thanks, Mongo. I just took a closer look at your post. Lot of useful info in there. I do like the look of tight grout joints so please expound a bit on what you mean by "rectified." And I'd already decided on under floor radiant so I appreciate the heads-up on it being easy to screw up. Again, thanks.
Non-rectified tiles? The clay is cut to size, glazed, then fired. During the firing process the tile may change size by a bit. A 32nd, a 16th. Maybe slightly out of square. Normally not a problem with typical grout joints in the 1/8th to 1/4" width range. When tiling a floor with non-rectified, it's often best to not use tile spacers and instead snap 3-tile by 3-tile grid lines. Lay the tile within the grid, fudging the spacing here and there. Depending on the variations within the tile sizing, you'll still get reasonably uniform grout line widths across the floor, you might be +/- a 32nd, but overall, visually the floor will look fine.Were you to use tile spacers with non-rectified, the variations in tile size combined with the rigid and uniform grout lines could throw the tile layout off line as you work across the floor.Rectified tiles are fired first, then cut to size afterwards. The sizes are exact and uniform from one tile to the next. You can lay them with tight grout joints (less than 1/8th) and not have an off-sized tile throw the pattern off.Rectified can be laid with tile spacers, for with the tiles and spacers being uniform, nothing should throw off your layout. Still, on floors I snap grid lines.Rectified requires a few additional steps in the manufacturing process, so the tiles are a bit more expensive. But if looking for tight grout lines, they're the better way to go.Mongo
Mongo,
For a guy who's only a pawn in the game of life, you do know your tile. ;-)
<g>Thanks!
You're welcome. Just take it easy on the livestock, will ya? ;-)
Porceline.Slates belongs on blackboards in schools. Everything else is way to soft and absorbant. Glass is a pain to cut and thinset.Regards, Scooter"I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow." WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
best / latest / most popular tile
That depends on the overall style of the house and your personal preffernces.
Most popular is often the cheapest worst tile.
Best in terms of durability is often overkill for a residential bath and you'd be better off spending that money on better fixtures/radiant heat, etc.
The latest trends seem to be new tiles that look old, so essentially old styles. Then there are contemporary styles in metal, glass, and other such shiney things.
I did see a company that makes 99.5% pure titanium tiles at something like $14/square inch, or over $2k a sqft.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
I did see a company that makes 99.5% pure titanium tiles at something like $14/square inch, or over $2k a sqft.
That's it!!! That's exactly what I'm looking for!! If you remember that web site please pass it on.
*chuckle*
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
yeah i put that in my 600 sf bath 1.2 mil was low bid,i hate the stuff,you step out of the shower and fall on your but.damn that titanium is hard but it don't scratch.i'm thinking about putting some shag carpet down.maybe in a green. larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
I dunno about best, latest or most fashionable, but the local tile place had 450 square feet of 4" italian tumbled travertine, real stone, at auction two years ago and I bought it for about $4 a square foot. I put it on the bathroom floor, countertop, shower floor and walls, and hand-picked some of the more funky tiles for the kitchen backsplash. I am very happy with it, the stone looks great. I still have 150 sf left over.
For two other bathrooms I used cheap Dal-Tile 2" octagons with 1" dots. Just on the floor. Didn't want to "waste" stone tile on the kids' bathrooms, wanted them to have something easier to clean too.