A bathroom with a beautiful and mesmerising interior is quite desirable in modern homes. Modern bathrooms are far from the taboo, cramped places from the bygone era. Now, your bathroom needs to be spacious, beautiful, well-lit, comfortable, and safe, and believe it or not, bathroom flooring has a lot to do with it.
Bathroom floor tiles can make your job of hitting all these targets with your bathroom interior easy. All you need is to select the best bathroom floor tiles, and here are the seven tips to help you:
Why Bathroom Floor Tiles?
Bathroom floors are unlike any other floor in your house, office, mall, or outside area. A bathroom floor is more likely to receive splashes of water mixed with soap and oil than any other floor open to use by people. These wet conditions are especially true for Indian bathrooms, where the bath area is usually open and does not feature a partition.
Although bathroom interiors are changing with time, the floor is more likely to be exposed to water and soap sooner or later. Thus, the bathroom floor needs special care with the following factors:
- The floor should have anti-skid properties
- Should avoid water absorption
- Must have an adequate slope towards drainage to drain water
These flooring features are critical for a safe and hygienic bathroom and will affect your options while selecting the best bathroom floor tiles.
The Best Materials for Bathroom Floors
You have a few options for bathroom flooring needs. The following materials can fulfil your bathroom floor needs, albeit fulfilment levels can differ:
- Vitrified Tiles
Glazed vitrified tiles (GVT) or porcelain tiles are the best available material for bathroom floors. This tile material is non-porous and does not absorb water. Thus, making it suitable for bathroom floor applications.
Also, porcelain is pretty much unaffected by exposure to most home chemicals and soap grease. Installing anti-skid porcelain floor tiles can set your mind free for a long time. GVTs are as good as natural stones, and you can mimic any natural material appearance using GVTs.
- Ceramic Tiles
Glazed ceramic tiles are the second best option you can choose for your bathroom floor tiling in India. Although the tile body can absorb a little bit of water, the tough glaze on the top surface is completely waterproof.
So, you can install the tile and seal the grout lines with waterproof grout to maintain a waterproof bathroom floor. The only way ceramic tiles are different from porcelain tiles is that their body density is low.
Ceramic bathroom floor tiles also feature anti-skid properties for user safety in the bathroom.
- Natural Stone Tiles
Natural stone tiles can be made of granite, slate, marble, etc. Natural stone tiles, though good-looking, are difficult to install. You will need to buy the slab and cut it to size on-site. The floor will need polishing after installation to get the level of anti-skid property you need in your bathroom.
While natural stone is expensive, the installation process makes it an even costlier venture. At the same time, stones like marble will need sealing, as they are more porous than ceramic or vitrified tiles and can get stained.
However, if your budget allows and you have a large enough bathroom, you can use marble tiles in the dry areas of the bathroom.
Tile Designs & Patterns
Bathroom floor tile designs can be as unique as the other aspects of the tile. However, a few patterns are more popular than others. Special bathroom floor tile colours and patterns:
- Terracotta: Rustic raw clay tile colours give the tile a natural appearance. These tiles are available in plain colour and mixed mosaic textures.
- Mosaic: Mosaic tiles come in a variety of unique patterns ranging from floral to Roman multicolour patterns.
- Wooden Plank & Tiles: Wooden planks and tiles are the most popular designs of all. A wide range of colour and shade options also helps you select a tile that supports your kind of mood in the bathroom.
India’s leading tile manufacturing brands, like H&R Johnson, offer large design portfolios of the above-mentioned tiles, plus more designs. Quartz is one of the other unique floor tile designs which features a range of colours like berry red, caramel, cream, leaf green and navy blue.
Surface Finish Choices
Bathroom floors need to be resistant to water, soap, and common cleaning agents used in bathrooms. Thus, tiles must feature a sturdy surface and rough texture to allow a higher grip even in wet conditions.
You have the anti-skid option with ceramic tiles. However, vitrified tiles can feature multiple surface textures suitable for bathroom flooring:
- Sugar
- Matte
- Rustic
- Wood Matt
All these surface finishes are available with porcelain tiles.
Correct Size Selection
Selecting the correct tile size is more important for bathroom floors than walls and floors in other spaces. The bathroom floor needs to be sloped to allow water to flow to the drain without clogging. Smaller tiles make it easier to slope the floor correctly.
120x60cm, 60x60cm tiles are good for larger bathrooms, say with 100 square feet or more floor area. However, smaller bathrooms should use 40x40cm or 30x30cm tiles.
Thus, you should select a floor tile size based on your bathroom floor area.
The Best Bathroom Floor Tile with Proper WaterProofing
Waterproofing is a requirement in bathrooms easily fulfilled by ceramic and porcelain floor tiles. You can use a rectified version of these tiles to minimise the grout lines and provide additional water safety. The rectified tiles are cut to size after manufacturing and do not feature round edges. Thus, you can install these tiles with a gap of less than 1-3 mm instead of 4-5mm for other tiles.
Selecting the best bathroom floor tiles involves looking for long-term solutions. Choosing the right material, design, size and surface finish for the floor tiles will make your bathroom a lasting, satisfactory and beautiful space in your home.
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