Align with floor grout or....

[Simon Watkins]

Just about to do my en suite in travertine (610 x 305) and the floor is in 305mm square granite. There is an odd number of tiles on the floor against the two walls to be tiled. Wall tiles will be in landscape for optimum layout reasons, plus its a tall room but not ver large so want to make it look larger not taller.

My layout question is this: I can align to the floor grouts (every other tile) with the wall in landscape, but the layout will be unbalanced due to the odd number of floor tiles (ie with a half wall tile at one end in the corner). Or I can centre the wall grout lines (ever other floor tile) and have approx a 1/4 wall tile at each end.

I think aligning to floor grout lines will look better overall, but wondered what you would do?

This is a DIY job so I've not got the experience to know what will be for the best and don't want to live with a duff choice!


thanks for any thoughts!!!!

Simon

 

[Gazzer]

A strange question to ask on xmas day ?????

 

[Qwerty]

Much of a muchness to be fair. Lay them diamond set and you will never have to stress!

 

[cam_low]

Travertine walls granite floor ?

What colour are both sets of tiles?

 

[Simon Watkins]

The floor is star galaxy granite and is already down. The walls are walnut travertine. It was more of a layout question than a colour choice! They look nice against each other rather than a sea of beige.

 

[cam_low]

What colour galaxy?

 

[Simon Watkins]

Black with copper/gold flecks

 

[Simon Watkins]

Anyway back to the layout question....

Was thinking last night that the layout in portrait format would be perfectly aligned to the floor tile grout lines, but might make the room seem taller rather than wider - and there would be fewer cuts with more whole tiles. so really its a case of trading enhanced room width in landscape but with unbalanced layout vs good layout in portrait at the risk of making the room seem taller. (Its a 2.85m room height)

 

[Bubblecraft]

Thought Galaxy was only copper flake?

 

[cam_low]

Sorry I'm just trying to get my head around galaxy and travertine mix. It's not the norm!

have you any windows in the room? External corners?
As you have tall ceilings your fixing of the tiles landscape will give the appearance of a wider room. You need to set the room out to ensure big chunky cuts all around. However if its important to have the lines marrying up then go that way. The tiles are twice the width of the floor ones so can you not set it out to ensure they marry up every other tile?

 

[Simon Watkins]

It looks nice we think! - black goes with most things, and the copper fleck works with the walnut, and we don't like beige floors especially! It's only to dado height around the black floor. The plan originally was to have white wainscot to dado height around the black tiled area like we have in the main bathroom, but we've had issues with moisture on the wood in there so are thinking trav will be easier and being walnut not too much contrast we think. Don't really want to rip up the granite now

No windows - the room isn't huge and the one long wall is interrupted by a 40mm step into the room and has a 50cm 45 deg corner at one endbto complicate matters- so the longest run of tiles in landscape would be 2.5 on two walls, 2 on another then 1.5, a 40cm by the doorband 50cm on the 45 degree wall. Doing it in portrait would give me more uncut tiles and would align with the floor. As you say horizontal will broaden the room and will align every other tile but will result in a half tile at one end of the layout leaving it slightly unbalanced.

The alternate I guess is brick bond but with so many short walls will lead to more cuts, some awkward. Leaning towards vertical to dado height around the floor (2 tiles, so 120cm) and 4 tiles high in the shower (240cm) which leaves a gap of 30cm till the ceiling coving. I might be over thinking the visual effect on height - after all wainscot is much thinner, taller, and vertical and that doesn't make the room look taller - the contrary in fact. At a push, I could remove the ceiling coving and go floor to ceiling in the shower area but I think the room is just too tall for floor to ceiling tiling. For such a small room the design is doing my head in

Simon

 

[macten]

You could make a skirting border of floor tile

This can make a room look a little bigger and slightly less high. It allows you to follow the floor joints up the wall a little but can then provide a nice barrier above which you could tile the rest of the walls as you would like.
Just another option you may want to consider, or indeed not - lol

 

[Simon Watkins]

Well, a bit radical, but enough doubt sewn in my mind about granite and trav that we've changed tack. My awkward wall I'm now going to do in a trav mosaic which solves a couple of issues with layout and makes it a feature wall. This frees up enough walnut trav to do the floor! So today I've been mostly leaning on my trusty SDS Hammer drill with a tile bolster fitted, lifting granite..... And means that I can now the floor and wall in concert rather than as two different jobs. It was a painful and expensive decision, but for the sake of a couple hundred quid in materials, we should get a better overall finish.

There is a moral in this. I'll confess to hopefully save someone else making the same mistakes. The original bathroom design was to be similar to the main bathroom. Plain white metro tiles in the shower area with a glass mosaic border around its waist and a wooden white wainscot to dado height around the room.. The floor was first a checkerboard design using cheap wickes tiles. Did the floor first. Didn't look right. Took them up and reprepared the floor using SLC to fix the divots. That's when we bought the granite. Laid the granite - lovely. Half fixed the wall tiles in a brick bond, but was just too busy - too many cuts, and we hated the mosaic waist (bordered with expensive metal trim). Decided to take off the tiles after a week before completing it. Cue the need to redo the hardibacker and tanking. Finally decided on the walnut trav after repairs complete. Which brings you up to date (there were other failed excursions en route, including a recessed shower cubby/niche that no longer features in the mkii repaired backer board - was just too fussy).

anyway the moral is not to buy cheap to start with - the cost will fade away with time but the results will live with you and annoy you if they are wrong. Plan the whole thing again if it goes wrong halfway through - don't make piecemeal changes. And maybe consider getting second and third opinions if interior design isn't your thing!

Now that I have a blank canvas again, and a few hundred quids worth of walnut trav, we are sticking to that, but are hoping, really hoping we'll be able to get the look we are after third time round! Sigh, its only money and a lot of hard work

Thanks for input - it might not seem to have helped given it has cost me a granite floor, but I think it may have saved me an annoyance for the life of the bathroom!

I really wish there were some easy to use bathroom planning software to help visualise the final "vision" including tile layouts etc.

Simon

 

[cam_low]

Wow, you really have been on your travels with this bathroom.

Trying to mix man made tiles and natural stone is very difficult in my eyes to achieve a good look.

I think you have to stick with one or the other to be frank.

I think if you had got s tiler in to do his job and ask questions on colours, materials and being asked if they had an opinion on the job you may have ended up with something sorted sooner!!!
Good luck with the rest of the job and remember, post pictures on the finished job when you are finally happy!!!

 

[Simon Watkins]

Erm, granite and travertine are both natural stone....