<p>I always liked my great aunts tiny octagonal tiles on her bathroom floor.
( Hwever- not so much the separate faucets for hot & cold water.)
I like some of the things in this local house- but I would have never been able to justify redoing a bathroom where each tile had to be individually cut. That seems insane.
[url=<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2014374700_pacificpnwl13.html]Seattle”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2014374700_pacificpnwl13.html]Seattle</a> bungalow reborn from clunky to handcrafted <a href=“I%20do%20like%20the%20custom%20made%20desk-%20but%20I%20think%20stained%20glass%20kitchen%20cabinets%20are%20too%20fussy-%20can%20you%20imagine%20what%20they%20would%20look%20like%20after%20a%20summer%20of%20your%20kids%20running%20through%20the%20house?”>/url</a></p>
<p>I think I am leaning toward 12x12 slate tiles- they are the same depth of color as the fir floors</p>
<p>I was going to suggest the octagonal tiles for your bathroom floor, given the period of your house. You can get them in sheets that are all white or black and white, and I think in some colors. The colors can be used to create a border or accents in a white floor. Also, gray grout looks good with many white tiles, and doesn’t get that dirty grout look. (A friend of mine bought a house that had small square white tiles on a bathroom floor with gray grout, maybe 2x2. Looked great.)</p>
<p>I really do not like the tile job in that bungalow bathroom. Too overpowering for me. The rest of it looks nice, though.</p>
<p>I detest sheet vinyl with a passion. In our current kitchen remodel planning I now have oak strip flooring that harmonizes with the rest of the flooring in the house, and 12x12 slate in the entryway where it takes a beating.</p>
<p>I’m with HImom with the vinyl. It is gentle on the feet, knees and back, it is not as slippery as tile, no grout, does not chip if something heavy is dropped, much less expensive and more waterproof. Just the edges have to be carefully grouted and waterproofed. </p>
<p>These days, you can find vinly that looks a lot like the ceramic tile which is what is in vogue. Vinyl is supposed to be a cheap imitation of it, but in my opinion is far superior in everything but pure durability and even in that area with the possibility of chipping, I find vinyl superior.</p>
<p>I have a vinyl floor now. It is not only hideous, it is uncleanable. It always looks dirty. It has been that way since we moved into the house in 1995, and it was installed in about 1980. I do not consider 15 years or less to be a sufficient life for a floor.</p>
<p>I want a floor that looks and is real and can last a lifetime, or longer. Real wood, real tile, real stone, etc. YMMV, of course.</p>
<p>We needed to put a new floor in our kitchen and didn’t want to spend a lot, but wanted it to look more contemporary. I didn’t want tile or stone (too cold, too hard and I HATE grout) and I would ruin any kind of real wood flooring probably within 24-48 hours (always seem to get water on the floor). </p>
<p>We found a vinyl strip sold through Home Depot called Allure flooring. It was not expensive, we were able to install it ourselves, it looks and wears great (even with a St. Bernard pounding on it) and it even fooled my very interior decor conscious sister-in-law who thought it was hardwood. A few years later we really needed to rip out the very old carpet in the living room, foyer and hallway so decided to go with the same pattern Allure (oak) that we used in the kitchen. It looks wonderful! It all ties and flows together. Maintenance is a piece of cake. </p>
<p>I agree that some of the synthetic flooring looks amazing.
My neighbor was showing me his redo on a mother in law unit in his backyard & I marveled that he had the extra bucks after spending ( over a year of constant work for three men) to significantly remodel his house and yard on hardwood flooring for a rental & he told me it was synthetic.</p>
<p>I didn’t get down on my hands & knees to examine it- but I think I will when it is just the workers around.
:)</p>
<p>Kitty I have to go out to Home Dept today I will give it a look thanks for the idea!</p>
<p>There are vinyl floors and there are vinyl lloors. Some look and clean a lot better than others. For the price of the tile, you can get a professional to install the floor with good padding and get the top quality vinyl.</p>
<p>There are those who simply hate vinyl. If that’s the case, go with the natural products, the wood, the tile, the slate. There are disadvantages and advantages to any choice. I have an top quality tile for my kitchen and bathroom now, and I can tell you that I would love to change to vinyl , but making the switch that way is expensive, time consuming and a lot of hard labor. You’ve literally got to break that tile out piece by piece, scrape and then put on the layer of vinyl. That’s the only reason I 'm not doing it. The floor is hard on my MIL’s and mother’s (in their 80’s) joints, and if either of them or anyone ever slips and falls, the chances of serious damage is high. If anything drops that is breakable, it shatters, including Corelle wear. In one of my former houses, stuff literally bounced off the kitchen floor, wonderful with 5 kids and their friends. Also it is so much gentler on the joints. At my age, I am feeling aches and pains and having a padded kitchen floor, since that is where I spend a lot of my time would be helpful. Also when my neighbor chipped a bit of her tile, it was a pain to remove even that foot square piece and replace it. The grout, though sealed has spots where it is still a bit porous and that has caused some issues. The only good thing about the floor is that it is a natural tile and it looks good and expensive, because it was.</p>
<p>I agree. To me, this is a very classic look that doesn’t go out of style when the next trend hits (right now it seems to be slate, travertine and travertine look-alikes). With things like tile and cabinets, IMO, you have to be careful not to go too trendy either in color or style because it is too expensive and too difficult to just rip it out every decade and start over. In many homes, you can walk into the kitchens and immediately tell when it was designed. Same for bathrooms. You can buy a lot of time if you stick with more classic colors and designs and use accessories to make the room appear updated. For example, white tiles never really go out of style and they’re very easy to decorate around. OTOH, those little glass mosiac tiles (which I love) will looked dated in about 5 years.</p>
<p>I am in dire need to replace the vinyl flooring in my kitchen. I, too, hate grout (we have tile at my office and the grout is nasty), so I am thinking of going with stained concrete. It will be inexpensive and super easy to cover with something else if I decide I don’t like it. Of course, stained concrete is not an option if you are not on a slab foundation.</p>
<p>We have always had quality installations for our sheet vinyl. There is an amazing array of options and flooring places–Home Depot to dedicated flooring stores. We chose one from a flooring store where we have a great relationship with the owner. She installed our kitchen and when we notice problems a few years after the installation, she has been working with the manufacturer to get a free tear out & new re-installation for us. We have had it in our bathrooms as well, since before we bought the house two decades ago and it still looks brand new. The key is to get high quality products that wear well and look great over time.</p>
<p>They do have some that look like wood. Since we have wood throughout the house, we thought that it would look odd to have that for our sheet vinyl. For us, the trick is to be sure to get a surface that is pretty smooth so you don’t get crud accumulating in the divots and lot spots on some of those highly textured surfaces. LOVE the sheet vinyl and have never had any problems with it, except when I spilled liquid aluminum on it & it melted (long story).</p>
<p>We have also taken out carpet from my mom’s home & stripped it to concrete, patched it & sealed it. It looks OK – for a storage room. Unless the floor is perfect and doesn’t have ANY blemishes, you might have to put something over it if you don’t want any cracks or patch spots to show. I am very happy with the concrete floor for the storage area but would not choose it for a bathroom or kitchen unless I was going to have them put something over it to hide the patch spots & then seal it. It was $700 to remove & dispose of the carpet, patch & seal the floor; replacing the carpet would have been MUCH less, but we didn’t want any carpet. More labor for what we wanted.</p>
<p>I’ve always heard concrete is very hard on the back, knees and hips especially in an area like the kitchen where you tend to do a lot of standing. Don’t know if it’s true but it’s something to keep in mind and maybe research.</p>
<p>Totally agree about white bathroom tile. I am also struggling with the very issue of glass tiles used as an acent. I love them, but I’m afraid they will be this era’s avocado green and burnt orange. :D</p>
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<p>People always say this about tile/stone floors, too. I have tile in my chocolate room, and the aforementioned revolting vinyl in my adjacent kitchen. There are days when I work in both rooms until 3 am. Yeah, then everything hurts! I find that what really makes a difference is wearing the right kind of footgear. Dansko clogs rule. Professional restaurant kitchens use those rubber (?) mats to give a softer surface underfoot. I doubt that vinyl vs tile is really going to make a difference for the average home cook. My 87-yr-old mother has a tile kitchen floor, and it doesn’t seem to bother her.</p>
<p>Concrete on a slab just sounds cold to me. But I’ve never had a house on a slab. Also, I generally detest carpeting. I’m all for [real]Persian rugs on a wood floor. :)</p>
<p>Me, too. Our entire house (except for the bathrooms and 2 other rooms) is hardwood with Persian rugs. I’ve never had tile in the kitchen, only hardwood or vinyl. Hardwood is my favorite. I don’t like wall-to-wall carpet any longer either. It will always be in the room that houses our home gym because of the weight machines but it will be ripped up soon in our family room and replaced with hardwoods. Our house is over 50 years old and most of the house has the original wood floors and they are gorgeous. The older the wood, the better they look. It lasts forever and is easy to maintain.</p>
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<p>I think if it’s used as a small accent, it is fine. I absolutely love the look of mosaic tile and was going to use it in my new shower recently and the designer who is helping me talked me out of it because she knew I was going for a classic, ‘won’t go out of style anytime soon’ look. I did end up using a small basket weave marble tile on the shower floor as a consolation prize for not doing the mosaic.</p>
<p>What about bathroom floor on a second floor? Can you put a tile or slate on a second floor bathroom? I know, stupid question, but worry that you will have a wooden plank substrate, as opposed to the concrete surface of the first floor.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about slate but we have tile in both our 2nd floor bathrooms. In fact, just replaced the vinyl in son’s bathroom with tile. Also had it in our 2nd floor bathrooms in our last house. I don’t think a wooden plank substrate is a problem.</p>
<p>If you put tile on a wood substrate, you need a rigid backer-board screwed down on top of the wood. Wood flexes. Tile and grout don’t. The backer-board is a concrete based product that comes in 4’x8’ sheets. It adds to the thickness of the floor. If you do a backer-board and tile, the threshold compared to carpet is going to be a bump up. Compared to hardwood, it will be about flush.
People complain about tile being “hard on the feet and knees”…who stands around in their bathroom for hours at a time? Tile can be lovely and luxurious underfoot. You need something with a matte finish and a straight but not sharp edge so you can have tiny grout lines but not feel them.</p>
<p>We started working with a design center regarding bathroom renovations. We were a bit out of touch on costs… looks like we will be starting with just the downstairs gues bath. It is fairly small, but it will get pricey if we expand the too-tiny (30x30) shower as DH would like to do. This guest bath has a pocket door to the den/guest-room, and we like the idea that it could be a downstairs master bath someday if we wanted that. </p>
<p>So… at this point our favorite design choice is white-ish Carrara marble sink with chrome faucet (single handle) and white undermount sind. The floor would have Carrara marble tiles (small, black/white diamond). The shower will probably be white subway tile with an accent panel of the floor tile.</p>
<p>Does anybody have Carrara marble? … .I’m skeptical about ease of maintenance. Other thoughts or advise?</p>
<p>I have a polished Crema Marfil marble on the counters in our master bath. Crema marfil colored porcelain tile on floors and walls in the shower. And a crema marfil/dark empordora marble basket weave pattern on the shower floor. Crema marfil marble is just like carrara marble but in a cream color.</p>
<p>You have to be very careful with marble or it will etch (look cloudy and scratchy). A maid used vinegar to clean the marble on our shower floor and it is very etched - fortunately, no one sees it except us.</p>
<p>I’m very careful with the counter tops to make sure I wipe up any spills asap. I don’t leave any toiletries and cosmetics directly on the counter. I also use a neutral pH liquid hand soap in the soak dispensers to avoid etching. A lot of people dislike using marble because of the potential staining issues. I would never use it in a kitchen like you see in magazines but I think it’s fine in the bathroom if you are careful. You need to use specially designed marble cleaners - they sell them at Home Depot and many other places. I love the look of my marble.</p>
I love them, but I’m afraid they will be this era’s avocado green and burnt orange. :D</p>