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Using wood-look tiles in kitchen and bathrooms, your experience?

29 days ago

Dear all, we are thinking of creating a cohesive and seamless transition between our bedrooms, living room, hallways (all hardwood floors), to kitchen and bathrooms - by using wood-look floor tiles. Any experience about this? What's the pros and cons of doing so?

Our thinking is very simple - that it may create a visual continuity. However, we have not used wood-look tiles in kitchen and bathrooms before, and the recent trend in bathroom design seems to favor gray color tiles for bathrooms. Any thoughts about this? Can someone please provide some photos for such design, and share your experiences? Thanks so much!!

Featured Answer

John Liu

29 days ago

The difference between the hardwood floors and the “wood look tile” will be obvious. You may not get as much visual continuity as you think.

Hardwood is a fine floor surface for a kitchen.

Bathrooms are always very distinct separate spaces so “continuity” is pointless.

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Comments (6)

eam44
29 days ago
I have used wood look tile in my kitchen in an unconvetional way. I laid it along the back wall of cabinets that contains the water line to the fridge. I will do the same under the cabinet run that holds the sink and dishwasher. It is a great color match to the hardwood I will use in the visible areas, although the ”planks” are thicker.

I don’t like standing on tile, it’s hard on my knees and lower back and I’m young and healthy. I can’t imagine how it would feel 20 years from now, but it’s not a surface I can grow old with. I used tile instead of having hardwood laid under those cabinets because I am more concerned about what slow, hard to detect water leaks can do to a floor over time than I am with the durability of hardwood in the visible areas.

That’s me. You want to use the tile in the kitchen and bath - I think the bathroom might be a bit much. The advice I would give you is to lay it like wood, not like tile, with random tile joints (top image). So if you cut a piece, start your next row with the cut remnant and tile from there, otherwise you will end up with regularly spaced grout joints that make it look more like tile than wood (bottom image). Use the smallest recommended tile joint for your tile, and use a matching grout color.
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OK...now to the MEAT of the issue. By 'rugs' I assume you mean wall-to-wall carpet. Ok. That means you have a house that has a second floor (can we assume wood joists for the second floor?) that has been BUILT to handle carpet. Carpets are light. They HIDE tremendous amounts of errors that the builders caused when building the house. At this point I would ASSUME the upstairs needs strengthening BEFORE tiles can be installed. Bathrooms are different. They have extra support because they are full of heavy things (tubs, showers, sinks, cabinetry). That means the bathroom floors are strong enough to handle tile. The rest of the upstairs is NOT strong enough for tile (if you have concrete then you can ignore this thread). Tiles are HEAVY. They will cause normal wooden subfloors to bend. Tiles don't bend...they crack. Their grout cracks. Then the pop up. Now you have a HUGE mess. The installer will have to do the math for the joists + subfloor thickness. That math will tell him/her how much THICKER the upstairs subfloor has to be. You will then pay for the new plywood for the upstairs. You will pay for that plywood to be installed (can be $2/sf for material + labour). Now you can install the tile. Tiles normally sit 3/4" thick once installed. That is VERY THICK compared to your carpet. Now the subfloor thickness is added to that. It is possible the upstairs floors will rise by 1" - 1.5". That means your stairs are going to get messed up. And now we have a BIG expensive problem. And that's just for the stairs. Imagine how big of a step down you will have into the bathroom. And the doors will have to be taken down and trimmed. If you want an easy to care for surface, you should look at laminate or vinyl plank flooring. Tiling the second story of a home can be VERY expensive. So expensive that most people do NOT try it. Be VERY aware of what you ask of your house. It was NOT built for tile upstairs. It was built for carpets...The stairs could be a nightmare you never ever want to experience. Their costs are extreme. Having to 'fix' a stair that is out of code can double, or even triple the cost of the project. No. I am not kidding. We've seen $15K spent on bring the stairs up to code in a situation like this. And then you have to pay to have a floor put on them.
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chinacatpeekin
29 days ago
Real hardwood and “wood look” tile juxtaposed, will make the tile’s “wood look” look really fake. I have had hardwood in my kitchen for almost 40 years, and it’s been great. I find tile flooring in living areas to be very hard on the knees and back. I do have tile in the bathrooms. I also think wood look tile is dated, but that’s just my opinion.
dan1888
29 days ago
The problem is probably the color and width of your existing hardwood floors. It's difficult to think of replacing them to what is currently one of the popular choices.
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chispa
29 days ago
I would not mix real wood floors (site finished or engineered) with wood-look tile. You will not find a tile that is a good match to your existing wood floors.

I did mix wood-look tile and wood stairs in a previous house. This was a guest house used for entertaining and we had kids/teens, so tile was the best flooring option. We then had the wood floor guy choose the best stain mix to match the wood stair treads to the tile.
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porkchop_mxk3 z5b_MI
24 days ago
If you're going to do tile, do tile. Not a wood wannabe. Nothing wrong with a wood-look tile but it won't look good next to real wood. Get something that contrasts with the hardwood rather than trying to mimic it, for an intentional look. I tend to like slate/charcoal color next to hardwood.

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