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Redoing the bathroom- tile?
We are doing a fairly compete reno of the guest bathroom which our two little boys use. It gets heavy use from the kids of course. We are trying to keep it budget but since there isn't a ton of sq footage the tile choice isn't going to make a huge difference. I am so confused by what type of tile to use.
I am after a contemporary vintage feel with a color scheme of grey/black/white/ and paint/accessories in yellow (probably). I love the look of basketweave mosaic or hex tile (with a black border) but our contractor (and others) have encouraged me repeatedly to use large format porcelain or ceramic tile for the sake of cleaning and durability. I think I could live with rectified large format tiles on the diagonal if I must (but am not sure if our contractor does rectified installs). Then I see posts about porcelain being a nightmare.
I think we can handle the mosaic/extra grout (in a light grey)- we have mosaic in our master shower and our housekeeper cleans it once a week which seems to be sufficient. I was thinking I would look for a light grey porcelain hex to get the feel I am after but avoid the extra work of carrera or dirtiness of all white tiles (do white tiles look dirty?). I haven't seen basketweave without marble in it- have you?
Are white tiles a nightmare? Will I regret hex or basketweave in a high use bathroom? Is marble fussy or isn't it? We don't wear shoes in the house (usually) but for some reason there is still dirt in the bathroom- maybe from their playground socks or something. The boys are slobs so I have to try to choose things that will hide that, lol. Your help is appreciated.
Re: Redoing the bathroom- tile?
I bought an older home 18 years ago. We have the small square 1" tiles in both bathrooms, one is peach the other mixed blues. I can't comment on white specifically, but I don't notice that these smaller tiles get any more or less dirty than big ones.
White anywhere with kids is risky, but tile is very easy to clean. If you want the white hex tiles, then go for it. I see these a lot on the DIY shows and it's very popular. Kids grow up and grow out of mud/dirt/sand playing and the tiles will be what you want. The grout is what gets dirty and hard to clean over time. If you are going with a darker grout, that would be a solution.
If you can find them in gray then that is also a solution.
Your encouragement has inspired me to "just do it" and choose the tile size I want. So it will either be basketweave or hex with a thin dark border and and a row of bigger tiles (maybe subway) along the outer edge. Still I need to further whittle the choices. I prefer the look of marble but again I fear the unknown upkeep.
Because the area is so small the price difference isn't a huge issue. I worry that porcelain might look like a public restroom, have you seen it installed in those patterns? I do like the idea of porcelain being so incredibly resilient, then again it is more brittle. My boys regularly pour water on the floor and while I get it cleaned up as soon as I can, I can't guarantee there would never be standing water- is that an issue?
Dh and I hope to purchase a larger home in approximately 5 years (which is why we scaled back the budget). Technically this is my parent's guest house and the lot cannot be subdivided so it won't be sold.
The more I type the more I am thinking I should just get the marble- either carrera basketweave with dark grey dots and grey grout or one of those multi tonal grey marble hex versions it can always be revived-anyone know what a pro charges for that? ty for all of the support : ) ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,v
DalTile (and American Olean) have Octagon and Dot patterns that are glazed so they give less of a commercial feel...
http://products.daltile.com/series.cfm?series=85&
Otherwise, I have worked with the porcelain 1" hex and have seen them turn out very nicely.
Marble can stain and etch, porcelain won't.
The woory about grout getting dirty is pretty common. You can add a grout boost or use special grouts to help (SpectraLock, StarQuartz, etc)
We added a bathroom to our 1880's farm house and used octagon white tiles and black grout. I love it, find it less slippery than the 18' tiles we used in our powder room/laundry area.
Go with what you love. And check out local tile places. We used HD for bathroom addition, mostly due to budget. For about the same cost (under 2.99 sf) we got beautiful tile at Porcelanosa during one of their sales.