7 Choices for Bathroom Flooring

Bathrooms can drain your budget quite fast when it comes to home renovation projects, since they are always used, having enough comfort in there is vital for the whole feeling of your home. Due to the nature of the use of this room, the high level of humidity, the need to clean it quite regularly and all the other activities connected with its use, there are certain requirements for the successful completion of this interior design madness called a ‘wet room’.

You need to have a proper drainage of course and then a way for the steam to leave the room safely, so a window or an exhaust bath fan should be the answer. Don’t compromise with just opening the door and letting the steam go to the other rooms, that’s the easiest way to acquire some mould on the walls and ceilings.

Regarding the insides of a bathroom the rule is – the closer something is to the water source the more water resistant it has to be, so obviously the shower spray has to be contained in the bath with curtains or in a shower stall. If you have covered the mentioned bases then you can experiment, depending on the area available you can make it into a make-up spot alongside with your morning routine. Since you would still need to feel comfortable and warm, especially on these cold winter mornings one of the options open to you is underfloor heating but there are also the ideas for the flooring itself.

Flooring varieties for bathrooms:

Tiles – well, of course, they are the most common option and with the modern designs, you can get whatever colouration your heart desires.

Stone plates – close to tiles but still completely natural and authentic in their looks, although warming them up even with underfloor heating can be challenging.

Glass flooring – at first glance, it might seem a bit inadequate as a flooring option, the goal is to reduce the slippery surfaces not to increase them, but you see there are tiles with enough texture to let you have enough stability when stepping on them. Also by covering your base floor with a thin layer of glass you can create a depth effect or with tinted glass some stained-glass effect.

Linoleum flooring – made from several materials like linseed oil, pine rosin, cork, wood flour and fillers it’s a good choice for flooring as it is water resistant and relatively cheap but it still needs to be installed properly for best results.

Vinyl flooring – is a type of a petroleum product, it offers a water resistant surface, can be installed in tiles and cleaning it can be quite easy, also it can come in surprising textures and coloration and some brands who offer vinyl can be expensive.

Floorboards – now that’s one of the surprising options, so the advice is, if you can then run away from it momentarily, often people content themselves with that flooring as they can’t change it or it’s too expensive to replace or they inherited it if their bathroom was originally a normal room, like one of those old worker houses in England with the outdoor bathrooms and toilets. It’s bad news all the way as the need to keep it dry would drive you crazy and unsurprisingly the wood would eventually start to rot around the toilet or the bathtub if it hasn’t started already. If you continue with the route you can potentially face a complete crumble of the flooring, major leaks and even the destabilisation of the house foundation.

Laminate flooring – this type is a manmade engineered product and as such some brands like Quick-Step have perfected its use in bathrooms and kitchens thus making it perfectly agreeable to install it in areas that are associated with water use. So for example the Quick-Step Impressive range of laminate flooring have a top layer with a scratch guard technology, splash warranty and waterproof repellent. Installed properly by following the manufacturer's guidelines you can get some good flooring able to work with underfloor heating and still give you that nice woodsy feeling.
Whatever your choice, keep in your mind your bathroom can become a sort of a sanctuary with the right design choices and bring you happiness just by being in it or having a bath while reading a book.