Tiling the Bathroom Floor

Our house has a few bathrooms, (4 1/2 to be exact!)

It sounds like a lot, but that number is sort of deceiving, because the house has a finished lower level, and a lower level apartment to boot, so that’s 2 bathrooms, one of which won’t be assessible to us once the apartment is rented. Then, the back entry has a 1/2 bath in the mudroom. Both the mudroom and the lower level bathrooms have the same luxury vinyl plank flooring, (you can find out more about that flooring project in this post).

On the main level, the master bathroom and guest bathroom have different style tile floors. I’ll show you the master bathroom in a future post…

Today’s post is about the guest bathroom, or 2nd bath as we call it.

(sort of funny because we have the 5 bathrooms, but somehow we know which one is the 2nd one, apparently!)

This is the 2nd bath before we renovated anything:

The floor was okay, and I had thought about keeping it. It didn’t have heat under the tile, and that’s not ideal in NW Wisconsin where we have 6 months of winter, but still if we could have kept it, I think we would have.

As the renovations began, turns out we couldn’t keep the floor tile. There was one tile that was cracked right in front of the toilet that I didn’t notice prior. Also, as the old vanity had to be removed, and there were no tiles under it, that floor space would show in the new plan with the new vanity, which is open at the bottom…  So to try to keep the old tile wasn’t worth it, therefore out it came along with most of the rest of the bathroom.

The whole bathroom, along with the whole house was getting renovated, here you can see the room after the old floor was removed.

On a side note, when I’m renovating or remodeling a home, I try to save from the original space what is quality and carefully think out what really needs to be changed or not. It’s a careful balance of keeping something intact, but not costing too much sacrifice in the design or cost! Sometimes just ripping out is cheaper… always a balancing act in renovations.

Once the new walls and bathtub were in place, the floor leveler was poured out over the new in-floor heat.

Our contractor is a very competent carpenter and we are always thrilled with his quality of work for us. (If you’re local to our area in NW Wisconsin and are interested in his contact information, send me an email and I’d be happy to share it with you!)

Once the floor was cured, he laid out the tile to dry-fit the pattern:

He used a laser level to keep the lines straight and started the install:

The cutting booth he set up, kept all the water splatters away from the newly sheetrocked walls in the hallway.

Here is Dan our contractor at work, cutting the tile very precisely with his wet-saw:

After the tile was installed he let it dry for a day or so and then grouted it.

Here’s a tip on selecting grout…

If the grout line is super narrow, less than 1/8 inch and/or if the surface of the tile is glass or easily scratched, you need to use NON-sanded grout. For all other tile projects you probably will need sanded grout. Although, now grout can have an additive in it to make it stronger, so the old rule of thumb isn’t always applicable.

I chose a neutral light-grey colored grout for this tile.

Speaking of this tile, I love the vintage pattern!

It’s actually meant to look like worn linoleum. I looked and looked and looked, seriously for days, online searching out something that was interesting, but not too harsh, (or too busy that I would easily tire of). The style I’ve been renovating this house in is what I’m calling a Colonial Revival Cottage style… My goal is to make it look like a Colonial Revival country cottage from the 40’s, give or take a decade. Something you’d see in an old movie, like the amazing house in the old Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant movie, ‘Bringing up Baby’. AMAZING house! (In this post I show you some of the inspirational pictures of that movie for our front pergola and porch) But it’s not just the porch that’s amazing in the movie, the interior of the house is pretty incredible too. I love that casual rustic style mixed with the formal style… so lovely.

When I finally decided on what looked online to be some lovely choices of tile at HomeDepot.com, I ordered the minimal amount for each pattern, (1 tile or 1 box depending). At HomeDepot.com, you can order it to pick up at the store for free shipping. During the renovation, I was making almost daily trips to Home Depot, so when the tile ‘samples’ came in, it was easy-peasy to pick them up. Whatever patterns I decided against, I could return right back to the store for a full refund.

I think in all I ordered 4 or so different tile patterns for this particular room, and boy was I ever happy that I did that! (pays to have time to properly select and get the samples to see in person) Seeing the tiles online, compared with in person, was a world of difference!

First of all, the colors aren’t always dependable on the computer screen. One of the tile patterns I ordered, looked blue-grey online and actually came looking very periwinkle… definitely not right for this room!

Then, all but one had a ‘pixelated’ look to the pattern up close. (I know, I can be picky about some things, but it’s like once I notice that, it just always looks cheap to my eye) Does that bug anyone else? I just can’t stand that pixelated look on the print of the tile.

The tile I chose for this bathroom, was actually an easy choice, (LOL once I found it, that is… You know something is always in the last place you look, kind of thing…). It doesn’t show the pixels in the printing of the design. It looks just as good up-close in real life as it does in the picture. The ‘chosen’ tile is also the perfect colors I was going for in this space, and I loved the pattern.

This is the tile up-close: (Here is the link for it directly at Home Depot) I really liked the aged, worn look of old linenoleum on it!

Looking across that bathroom floor, yes it does have a pattern, but it’s not so bold that it demands more attention than it should get, or hurt my eyes when I have a headache. Instead, the worn look of the faded colors just look wonderfully charming, like something from the 1930’s… Perfect for my ‘Colonial Revival Cottage Style’!

Oh and see that old black screen door in the background? I have a story about that… so fun!

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