Smaller bathroom floor

I've posted that we're replacing the vanity, sink, mirror, light and floor in our hall/guest bath.

What would you do for the floor? Since it's small, I wanted to put down real tile, but my mom is saying to put down vinyl tile squares, it'll look just as nice and since we don't have a tile cutter and obviously don't know how to put real tile down either. There is no tile in the rest of the house. Do you think it will look as nice? Is real tile overdoing it?

Thanks!

Message edited 10/13/2007 10:29:54 AM.

Re: Smaller bathroom floor

How big is the room again? (I'm sorry I forgot from your previous post.)

If it's just a small room with a toilet and vanity, I'd agree with your mother. We saw lots of nice, pretty stick on vinyl tile at Lowes, etc. Don't think of patterns from the 70s and 80s.. they have some real nice stuff out there.

Doing ceramic tile is a HUGE project. I can tell you that because we're still living it. Between the prep work... the mixing the mortar, putting the tiles up, mixing the grouting, the sealing, etc etc it's a bear. Plus not forgetting the fact of making the decision what tile, mortar, grout you will use which sometimes is hard. If you're a 'weekend fixitup warrior' like we are, depending on the size of the room it might take a week or two for you to get that ceramic tile down and finished. You can't just do things in line, you need to wait for things to cure, etc so its time consuming.

We have the vinyl sticky tile in our kitchen - which is pretty big, I think its 12x14. And it looks good. Did I wish it was real ceramic? Sure - but at that point we were redoing everything else so it wasn't feasable. We got a pattern that looks like ceramic tile, complete with grout lines and we've had 2 or 3 people think it was real ceramic.


ETA: I also forgot about the cost of tools, you are right that its a large additional cost. We had a small manual cutter/cracker from tiling our kitchen backsplash, but our bathroom tiles were so much stronger that we needed to buy a wet saw tile cutter (about 100 bucks.) Renting it didnt make sense, since we were doing things at night it took us one week every single night cutting. There are also all of the hand tools, buckets, small nippers, mixer attachment to your drill, etc.

Message edited 10/13/2007 11:20:55 AM.

Re: Smaller bathroom floor

Wow! I didn't think it was that much work! Maybe I will stick with the stick on tiles. Thanks!

Re: Smaller bathroom floor

I agree with everything said here however you do need to weigh the cost, time etc vs. putting down vinyl which will probably not last. If it's a high traffic area you'll be replacing the vinyl sooner than you would like. So, factor in the cost, time and material for the vinyl job x2 because you may end up doing it again.

Message edited 10/13/2007 11:46:47 AM.

Re: Smaller bathroom floor

I just did a small bathroom with tile. I bought a dry tile saw for under $20, pre-mixed mortar, grout, and tile from HomeDepot. Everything combined (including tile) was about $100. (I think it was actually a bit more, but I was experimenting with different tools...) It does take a while (a lot of drying time involved), but not impossible if you're patient, and handy with tools, and can afford to be without that bathroom for a while.


However, the stick-on vinyl is much easier....

Message edited 10/13/2007 3:56:48 PM.

Re: Smaller bathroom floor

Posted by GoldenRod

I just did a small bathroom with tile. I bought a dry tile saw for under $20, pre-mixed mortar, grout, and tile from HomeDepot. Everything combined (including tile) was about $100. (I think it was actually a bit more, but I was experimenting with different tools...) It does take a while (a lot of drying time involved), but not impossible if you're patient, and handy with tools, and can afford to be without that bathroom for a while.


However, the stick-on vinyl is much easier....

Message edited 10/13/2007 9:16:59 PM.