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Bathrooms Design Dilemma Flooring

Powder room remodel - floor

5 years ago

Hi all - I’ve been a reader, lurker and have even contributed a bit here, but this is my very first post :) I hope you can help me with a dilemma - we are redoing our main floor powder room, and have lots of decisions to make. The first one regards flooring. I don’t want too much grout, so I’m going after larger sized tiles. This morning I picked out two types of floor (see picture below). One is black ceramic with light veins, it’s matte and has the texture of slate. I just read some opinions about black floors in bathrooms, and they have me rethinking... Would this look grungy? Be hard to keep looking clean? The alternative is light marble - it has a honed silky finish that feels and looks beautiful. But since it’s natural stone, I’m a bit concerned if there could be issues with it on the floor? It’s a powder room, so it won’t be getting wet... although I do have 2 sons LOL... I’d be grateful for any opinions or suggestions. Thanks!

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Marta
Original Author

5 years ago

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Comments (15)

houssaon
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I wouldn't put marble tile on the bathroom floor. I like the black tile and the honed surface sounds interesting. If you like the look of marble find a porcelain look alike.
PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
5 years ago
Could you post a bit more info. There are 1000s of choices for bathroom floor why only these 2 .
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I am so off to Harbor Freight this weekend...so the edge ended up *polished* with that treatment? Do you know what grit it was? And the edge was all by hand, no electricity? WOW. I'm baffled. And tentatively inspired : ) WAIT: was this it? (see link) So you all went to 600 grit max? I have to say, it's a really interesting approach to sanding. Did it leave lines? I have so many questions : ) Here is a link that might be useful: is this it?
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Thanks, Jon1270. What bothered me about the original plan was the door from the powder room opening right into the central part of our dining room. I sat at the table and pictured someone coming into a dinner party and it felt awkward. So the design/build firm we are using adjusted the powder room door to where the hall closet is drawn and moved the hall closet to the foyer, cutting into our dining room. It's a long dining room and didn't interfere with the table but I have been struggling with how it would look to have a section of the dining room boxed in. It would also change the openness of the front entry way. If we moved the powder room to the office area, I pictured the door toward the bar end of the breakfast room. Our upstairs bathroom plumbing is right about that area so I'm hoping it's not a big move from that perspective - wondering if it makes sense from a space and aethestics of opening into the breakfast room? I will get out the graph paper and play around. Thank you.
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I agree, it is quite nice! HB' s tip about the faucet is the kind of thing that makes our forum community great. Where else are you going to get a tip like that when you are not even talking about working on the plumbing? Your mirror is a nicer version of one in my half bath. I used mine to hide a safe. My "friend" turned out to be a pill and money thief, a brother was addicted to opiates before he died of his addiction, I am disabled and need help around the house, and you never really know who might have problems or when someone in your household may need medication that is attractive to others. My contractor installed the piano hinge on a piece of one by half inch molding and continued the molding around the edges of the mirror so that you do not really notice that it is hiding anything. I will see if I can get a photo. Please excuse the seashell wallpaper. It came with the house and we have only been here ten years. The safe fit in an old med cab hole in the wall. It is handy to have a place to put money and credit cards when not needed, too. Plus, any time any workers are in the home, in goes everything attractive to dishonest or desperate people. If I had kids, I would have a safe for all my meds or guns.
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Comments (6)
NO to tile on the wall. It's a POWDER room. Get a tiny pedestal sink, or wall hung sink, a smashing wallpaper, or a deep rich paint color, a mirror that doesn't dwarf the sink, and move on.
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Marta
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you both for your comments! The room in its previous iteration had colorful tiles going up to about 3.5’, and the walls above that were painted in saturated, deep colors. There were also tiles on the floor, which are now gone. We also ripped out the wall tiles and are planning to replace them with mdf paneling/wainscoting. The paneling will be painted, probably something dark - a gray-blue or very dark teal. Maybe almost black. If possible, we’d like to keep the painted walls. That is the plan for now :)
PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
5 years ago
I still am not really understanding what you have going on.
annied75
5 years ago
If I'm understanding correctly, you will have really dark walls. In that case, I would go with a lighter tile than the black slate. I'm not a fan of the marble.
Marta
Original Author
5 years ago
The general idea is something like in the images below but with my walls... I looked at many, many tiles and don’t like the idea of all those grout lines... That’s one of the reasons why I’m thinking of the large stone tiles. Light marble or dark stone-like ceramic.
PRO
Kitchen & Bath Galleria
5 years ago
I like both but considering you want to keep the painted walls, I would go with the darker one to blend it to the wainscoting. And you can have the tile installed with thin grout lines and match the color to the tile.
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Marta
Original Author
5 years ago
Thought I would post an update on our powder room project (thank you again for the suggestions!).

I bought a pedestal sink to replace the rather ugly white cabinet that was in the powder room before. I hope the period style of the new sink will go with the rest of the space as it’s now planned...

Since the walls got a bit banged up as we were ripping out the tiles, we decided to go with a wallpaper above the paneling. I fell in love with (and bought!) the pictured wallpaper. It’s a bit crazy and colorful, but I think (and hope!) it will look fab.

For the paneling itself, we will probably choose one of the grayish-blues from the wallpaper.

Given these changes, do you think the gray-white carrare marble tiles would be a good idea for the floor? I know that some of you said that marble is not a good floor option in bathrooms - but we have carrara hex tiles in our upstairs bathroom and after 7 years they still look great, so I’m not necessarily scared of having natural stone here as well.
Any opinions or suggestions are welcome :)
Marta
Original Author
5 years ago
The powder room has been finished for a while, so I thought I’d show a picture. We went with the honed carrera tiles on the floor, but had to get a smaller pedestal sink (the vintage-looking one I loved seemed too big for the space). Overall, I’m pretty happy with it.
Nancy in Mich
5 years ago
I really love your wallpaper and wainscotting and I bet the marble does look good with it. Having the lighter colored floor is good in my eyes, to help prevent disorientation to people like me who might get dizzy in dark room. I love how colorful the room is!
Marta
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you nancyinmich! The room is actually pretty bright - it’s just challenging to take a decent picture... I have to admit, laying the wallpaper and floor tiles was a challenge that brought us (me mostly) to the brink of sanity... Mainly due to the small size of the room, but also its many wall angles. Finishing it was by far the best part of the project.
tiffany66
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
The good news is there are wonderful sealers on the market that make tile maintenance easy. I just finished deep cleaning my kitchen grout and will be sealing it with Aqua Mix Tile and Grout Sealer by Custom Building Products. Mfg says it will be good for years to come. It seals the grout so well that even water drops will not penetrate. I was sold. Imagine sealed for years -- music to my ears. They sell all types of sealers and are bound to have one that works for you.
wiscokid
5 years ago
I have honed marble floors in the powder room too - no regrets!
Marta
Original Author
5 years ago
We seled the honed marble floor with three layers of sealant, incluging one after it was grouted. So far so good!

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