A Smart Guide to Low & High End Flooring for Bathrooms

It doesn’t matter if you are at the beginning stages of your bathroom renovation or you are in the middle of it, one thing you can’t forget about – is the shower or bathroom floor, showcased by improvenet.com. It might be super easy to get hung up on things like style, details and colours, one of the more important details that you need to figure out is the material and in turn the benefits and functions of that material.

Guide to Flooring for Bathrooms

Whether you invest in something budget-friendly or more on the expensive side, if you don’t learn about things like durability, slip-resistance, or maintenance, you could be letting that investment go down the drain, pun intended!

In order to help you choose the best material for your specific needs, you will find an array of materials below as well as pros and cons of each material.

Marble Flooring $$$

Marble is a natural stone, but it might not be as tough as you think. It’s actually one of the more soft stones in terms of strength. It comes in tiles and slabs. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful material. It comes in an array of colours and styles, most of which will have a sort of swirl of colour to them.

Pros

• It’s luxurious, it’s timeless, classic, and incredibly elegant to say the least.
• Marble can also be cut into different shapes in terms of the tiles so if you want squares or rectangles or even hexagons, you can have it.

Cons

• Since this is a softer stone it does scratch pretty easily, and it can get stained.
• The first way to make sure your shower stays looking good is to make sure you keep up with it.
• Secondly, make sure that you get it sealed, not just once in a lifetime, but at least once a year.
• Marble can also be slippery but this can be fixed by purchasing a honed finish rather than shiny.

Travertine Flooring $$$

Travertine is a really popular material outside, as well as inside according to tilemarkets.com. This is also a natural stone and it comes in all sorts of colours like greys, browns, and even golds. Travertine tile is another very good options to consider while deciding your shower floors.

Pros

• Like marble, travertine can be slippery, but this one also comes in a tumbled or honed finish.
• It’s a long lasting material, that will last for years to come without any real issues.
• It also comes in slabs, 12×12 squares, 4×4 squares, and 2×2 inch squares as well as other shapes.

Cons

• Travertine is a porous material, it will need to be taken care of in terms of cleaning up soap suds and shampoos, as well as sealed once a year.
• The dyes in shampoos, conditioners and cleaners can actually ruin your travertine floor, so just watch out what you use on it.

Glass Flooring $$$

This just started to be a thing within the past few years. When you talked about glass in a bathroom all people really thought about was the shower stall doors. But, these days you can actually get glass slabs and tiles that are specifically meant for the floor. This can add a build touch of colour, class and personality to your shower floor.

Pros

• If low maintenance is what you want, glass is the epitome of easy to clean. All you need is some Windex or the like, a soft cloth and give it a quick wipe down.
• Glass has a way of looking luxurious and high end.

Cons

• Glass, as I am sure you know, is incredibly slippery. If you get a regular old shiny finish on this type of flooring, you are in for a world of hurt.
• Instead, try to find other options where it has a textured finished or a honed finish so that slippage won’t be an issue.

Porcelain Flooring $

When a lot of people think of the word porcelain in a bathroom, they assume it’s placed on the walls. But, more and more people over the years are using this superb material as a floor for the shower. It’s incredibly waterproof, durable as per porcelainenamel.com, and it will last few decades, if not longer.

Pros

• This is a very versatile material. Literally any colour, style, pattern or even tile shape is available.
• On top of that you can even get custom made tiles that look like other materials like wood, stone, granite, etc.
• The best part of having it mimic these more expensive materials, is that it does so without bringing the same cost.
• Marble, as mentioned above, is a very beautiful stone; but it’s also very expensive. You could get a porcelain tile that is made it look like marble and purchase it at half the cost.

Cons

• There aren’t too many cons with this material. The only one is the grout.
• It can get stained over the years, so you will have to watch what types of cleaners and shampoos go on it, you can also consider getting it sealed.
• The seal on grout will make it a little more slippery, but the sealant will keep the grout from getting stained. It’s sort of an either or option! You have to make the decision on what is more important.

Wood Flooring $$

When it comes to any flooring, there is also this sort of tug of war between two materials that people like and use the most; natural stone such as marble or travertine and wood. For wood flooring in the shower, you are probably looking less at species of woods, and more at one specific type of wood; teak or something like it. Teak wood works really well as bathroom flooring in a shower for a floor because it is a pretty versatile and flexible material. It can withstand water, it will fade over time, but that sort of adds character to the floor.

Pros

• Wood is classic, it’s great for modern, industrial and contemporary homes, as well as minimalistic.
• If installed properly, these floors will go right over top of the drain in the shower.
• The slats allow the water to go through them and down to the base of the shower. Wood is incredibly beautiful, you simply cannot beat it, unless of course you like stone better!

Cons

• Wood can get costly. It really depends on what type of wood, the stains, the sealers, etc.
• These are all variables when it comes to cost, but chances are it’s cheaper than natural stone.

Pebble Flooring $

Pebbles are a really different material. The pebbles can be mixed and matched how you see fit and they can create a very rustic feel.

Pros

• Pebbles are almost always honed or tumbled which means they are anti-slip.
• They are also very beautiful; every floor can be made to order and every floor is going to be different across the board.
• Even when you get the same stone “types” you will see little differences all throughout the stones.

Cons

• The biggest con is the amount of grout to clean! Its part of the aesthetics, but still, there is a lot of grout that will need to be sealed and cleaned.

The Gist of it

Flooring for bathrooms are what make or break your bathroom final look. It is much more essential than we deem it to be. I was once asked to give my home decor blogger opinion on what I would skim and splurge on in a bathroom, flooring for bathrooms was one I would spend on. I am not saying spend your entire budget on it, but if you have to find savings, try other areas first before cutting back on the floor.

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This is Grace

Grace from Color & Grace. Based in Troy, Michigan, Grace is a 41 year-old petite woman who loves colours. Born and raised in China, she moved to America for love in 2007. Her day job – teacher. Her dream job – fashion blogger. Make sure to go and check out her blog and leave her a comment on her awesome outfit.

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