When designing or renovating your bathroom, your choice of floor tiles is a major decision. Not only from an aesthetic standpoint, but from a practical standpoint as well.
You have a great many choices when it comes to selecting tiles for your bathroom. So many in fact that for many people the wealth of choices can be confusing. From a practical standpoint, the tile has to be sturdy enough to withstand all of the traffic it is going to get over the years. And, unless you have unlimited funds, your choice will most likely be determining the correct balance between quality and cost.
As far as installation, the most important thing that you should be concerned about is the quality of the sub-flooring. If the condition of the current sub-flooring is bad, you will have to replace it. If only portions of it are bad, you can get by with only replacing sections of it. In fact, if the sub-flooring is bad, don’t even begin to lay tile. You will only end up having to redo the tile in a few years when it begins to break away from the sub-flooring. Some people decide to use their current flooring as the sub-floor. If your current floor is hardwood or a hard tile, this may work out fine. If, however, there is sagging or squeaking, you are probably better off tearing up the flooring and starting over.
If you do decide to put a new floor over the current floor, one new choice rapidly becoming popular is laminate. You may be familiar with laminate used for counter tops. Recently however, some homeowners have begun to use laminate for their bathroom flooring. While not nearly as sturdy as some of the other options, it is a lot cheaper.
One strike against laminate flooring is that it cannot be repaired if damaged – you will have to replace it. It also cannot be refinished. With the techniques used to manufacture laminate flooring, the look can fool the casual viewer. For instance, you can get laminate flooring that looks just almost like the real versions of ceramic tile, stone, or even wood.
Most people will not be able to install laminate flooring on their own. So when obtaining your estimate, make sure that the estimate includes professional installation.
Other tile choices such as ceramic tile, stone tile, hardwood, and concrete are more durable. But they are more expensive as well. If you need an inexpensive choice, laminate flooring is worth at least taking a look at.
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