If your 1930s home is still settling and shifting in 2008, I think you'd have bigger problems to deal with. If you want tile, I'd go with tile. Most contractors are pretty clueless when it comes to old homes. It takes a very special type of contractor to know what's involved with working on old homes. Get the tile of your choice! Our bathroom is 1918, remodeled horribly in the 80's. When we redo it, we're going with tile on the floor and 1/2way up the walls and we won't be worried.

Our contractor is great. He is a long time friend of the family. The last house my husband lived in was built in the seventies and when he redid his tile it cracked. This was after thousands spent on fixing the foundation. There can be all kinds of problems in homes. Good luck with your tile.

Sandy, I have to say that advice doesn't sound quite right. We removed the stick-on tiles on our bathroom floor and tiled it with no problems and our floor isn't even very level. Any shifting or settling in your house should have occurred already. You do have to make sure the substructure is sound enough to support the weight of the tile and use cement backerboard - there's a calculator tool at the John Bridge tile forum, link below.

In the example you gave of your husband's 70s house, I notice you said the tile cracked when they re-did it. So the original tile never cracked? If the problem was sagging or shifting, the original would have been cracked, so I suspect the tile job in that instance! Maybe improper mortar and the tile wasn't bonded properly?

Sandy

Here is a link that might be useful: John Bridge deflecto

No the tile was cracked before they replaced it. House was built on clay.....had to put pilings under the footers or something like that. Then they redid the bathrooms and it did the same thing.

Look, I'm not even sure I really want tile. What I guess I should have asked is, what are some options besides tile or linoleum?

I anguished about what to put in our 1916 bungalow after removing the original linoleum. We figured that the floor probably couldn't support ceramic and we do almost everything ourselves so didn't want anything complicated (2nd floor bathroom). And we also had the original clawfoot tub to contend with. We ended up going down to the original pine flooring, finished it with Waterlox and left it at that for now. We don't have small children in the house, don't expect much in the way of drips or floods, and I realized you can only expend so much time and energy on it. It IS a bathroom, after all. When we sell, we might have to finish it differently but we like it nail & hammer marks and all. I think it would be just as OK to put some kind of floating floor in there, like an interlocking laminate wood or even ceramic-looking pattern. You can always pull it up later. Our bathroom is fairly small so changing it later would be no big deal as long as nothing's permanent. I don't know about yours though. I also really wanted to try the Marmoleum click tiles. They say they're not for wet applications, but again, barring major leakage . . . plus I think they have to say that to cover themselves. Just my 2 cents.

We extended our bathroom 30" by going into a closet. Bathroom had mosaic tile with a 2" mortar bed which we removed completely. The floor was patched to level with OSB and laminate installed. We use two rugs on the floor, one in front of the tub and one in front of the vanity to catch any dripping water and have never had a problem with standing water. Two years now and looks great.

Ex-baker that was used to stand on a solid surface floor (terrazzo, concrete) 8-10 hrs a day, no way would I have tile at home, too hard on bare and stocking feet.

We also placed laminate in the kitchen after removing linoleum (2) and 1/4" subfloor, we love it.

Sounds like a variety of good advice above. Like joandaugh, we have an old, original (1926) wood floor in our bathroom that is currently under vinyl sheet flooring. We'll be expanding the bathroom by annexing an adjacent closet that will double the current space of the bathroom. We plan to take up the vinyl and refinish the wood (it's red oak) if there are no huge problems with it, as it is continuous between both the bathroom and the adjacent closet. We'll probably tile the shower/tub area, however, and maybe extend the tiling on the floor a little in front of the tub, not sure yet. It's just my husband and I here and I don't think we'd be careless with water so I'm not real worried about having a wood floor in the bathroom. Like joandaugh, I really love the look of the old wood floors--a few battle scars give it character.

I recently did my whole upstairs hallway and 'art studio' room (the major extension of the hall) plus my teeniest-ever bathroom, with a new and beautiful sheet vinyl with a matte finish, with very fine 'cracks' (to resemble a slightly rocky terrain), a light caramel color, but really well done shadings in there of gray and white, etc. and an overall look of some desert place. The bathroom is now a couple of shades of aqua-tourquoise and silver, with terra cotta accents, and I love it! Just because everyone down the street has been sold on tile for years doesn't mean you have to go that route (plus my feet stay warmer in there than they would with tile).