The type of bathroom flooring and wall coverings you choose is entirely down to personal choice, although there are advantages and disadvantages to different floor types.

Choosing bathroom flooring

There is lots to consider when choosing your new bathroom flooring:

  • What material should your bathroom flooring be?
  • Do you want 3″ x 6″ or 4 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ tiles?
  • Do you want bevelled or straight edge tiles?
  • What colour should your bathroom flooring be?
  • Do you want a pattern?
  • What bathroom tile type do you want - bold graphics or mosaics?

It’s a hard choice which can send you crazy and it took me months to choose our bathroom flooring.

From an aesthetics point of view, choosing your bathroom flooring and wall coverings should be done together so you can ensure the right balance of colours and textures.

Bathroom tiles are perfect as floor and wall coverings since they are hard-wearing, scratch-resistant, waterproof and easy to clean. Not all bathroom tiles are suitable for both floor and wall, so check this before you buy, and remember that tiles can be very slippery when wet and cold underfoot.

Types of bathroom flooring

For bathroom floor tiles, opt for non glazed, non slip varieties and consider installing under tile heating to take away the chill off the bathroom flooring.

While traditional bathroom flooring coverings such as vinyl, rubber, and linoleum are all relatively inexpensive to buy and fit, nothing endures as well as marble, slate and granite.

Laminate flooring is an option but be sure to use one that is recommended for use in a bathroom as some will not take the moisture. Alternatively you could go for vinyl sheeting which comes in thousands of designs and is a cheap and easy bathroom flooring option to install.

If you are installing heavy products such as a cast-iron bath then you must ensure that your bathroom floor is strong enough to bear the weight - you may need to re-enforce the joists.

N.B. A good tile design idea is to choose contrasting colours for the floor tiles and wall tiles.

What size bathroom tiles?

  • Avoid using large tiles (e.g. 60×30cm) in a small bathroom, as they will dwarf the room significantly
  • Small tiles (e.g. 10×10cm) can look good in smaller bathrooms however you will have many grout lines
  • Take note of the spacing between your washbasin, toilet and windows
  • Light coloured tiles (i.e. White or cream) can make small bathrooms look bigger as they reflect the light
  • Using the same colour wall and floor tiles can give your bathroom a spacious effect

Calculating how many bathroom tiles

When ordering your bathroom tiles you will need to know the size of tile and the size of the area(s) you need to tile. You can then work out how many bathroom tiles you need in m2.

When doing the calculation remember to take into account the gaps between tiles (spacers) and consider more than half a tile as a full tile and less than a half tile as a half tile. One way of doing this is use a scale drawing of your bathroom and a scale cut-out of the tiles, then place these appropriately. This will also help you to experiment with different layouts.

Normally companies will advise you to order 10% extra tiles in case of breakages. Most of them will take back what you don’t use as long as they are in one piece and this means you can finish the job in one go.

There is an overwhelming variety of bathroom tiles, check out our bathroom tile types guide.

Overall remember that planning the bathroom flooring, whether opting for bathroom tiles or something else, its one of the most important steps for ensuring a perfect finish, so take time to make the decision.