It took a while to decide on tile. At first we had thought we would go with large white glossy subway tile. We love the look, but Jennifer thought that perhaps low gloss tile would be more practical and show the water spots less. We also wanted a larger tile to cut down on the amount of grout to clean.
We wandered the tile aisle at Home Depot and Rona, and the the tile areas at a couple of custom bathroom shops.
A few observations:
1) Custom bathroom shops are very trend-based. Everything there is variations on one or two themes. Everything there is very expensive compared to similar product at the home stores. If you want the latest in-look, fine. Otherwise you are stuck.
2) Rona is good at it, but everywhere else needs big improvement in marking which tiles are floor tiles and which are wall tiles. The samples are all mounted vertically in the store, but many of them are floor-only.
3) I am terrified at the thought of doing my own tile and having it stare me in the face every morning for the rest of my life. I just wanted to make that clear. I am going to tile this bathroom, but it scares me silly.
We decided on this Italian tile from Rona. The very subtle green will pull in the green from the main living areas, and the pattern will hopefully mask water spots and such. The tile itself is semi-gloss, 8 inches square.
The tiles are $1.89 each and we need 160 of them. I bought 165, and we can go back and get more, they have lots.
I also picked up some miscellaneous plumbing and electrical things that I will need.
Cost for this Post:
$311.85 – 165 tiles (Rona)
$11.69 Grout float (Rona)
$3.99 Mortar trowel (1/4 square notch) (Rona)
$9.38 1/4″ tile spacers (bought the wrong kind, have to get 1/8″) (Rona)
$20.99 White Ultracolor+ Grout 10lb (Rona)
$39.99 White Ultraflex II Mortar 50lb (Rona)
$7.98 Grout Haze cleanup (Rona)
$2.09 Grout sponge (Rona)
$5.48 Electrical boxes (Rona)
$6.99 3″ silicone coupling (To mate the old and new toilet pipes) (Rona)
$11.49 3′ of 3″ ABS drain pipe (for the toilet drain) (Rona)
$1.49 Wax toilet ring
Total cost with taxes: $485.31
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