Bathroom tiling - matt and/or gloss

[johnnyBv8]

Im currently planning my bathroom refurb. Two of the walls will be panelled (to around 1m, with painted wall above - wall to left of image and a boxed in section under windows). The remaining 2 walls will be full height tiled and the floor will also be tiled. I ve attached an image of the general plan - it s just rough and ready and uploaded for context not the reason for the post.

We re going with marble effect porcelain. I ve been looking at slip ratings for bathroom tiles and think I probably need a matt tile for the floor to avoid them being too slippy. I m not sure if it will look odd to have a combo of matt and gloss in the same tile - has anyone done this? Options:

1) Matt floor and gloss walls
2) All in matt
3) All in gloss

Edited by johnnyBv8 on Monday 2nd June 13:04

[M11rph]

Having had gloss tiles in a smallish ensuite before I'd avoid them.

Slippery, show every bit of dirt/water mark and lighting needs care to prevent dazzling reflections.

"Matt" tiles come in a variety of finishes, just like paint, so you need to go and find some of the candidates and go hands on.

I'd also:

- Avoid white grout, it looks grubby too easily.
- Apply two treatments of grout sealer when done, it massively reduces any limescale/soap residue build up. Showers look new years later.
- Buy shower screens with a ceramic coating, it repels water making cleaning easy. You can apply it to shower tiles too.

[johnnyBv8]

Thanks - you’d avoid gloss finish on walls as well as floor?

[M11rph]

Mine was gloss floors and walls.

The issue about showing every bit of dirt/water mark got really annoying, showers needed cleaning down after each use etc. Tiny spalshes from the sink all showed. Matt tiles now and it is simply easier to live with.

I also had two reflections of ceiling spotlights which were dazzling, bouncing off the floor and walls.

I'd only have gloss tiles in a bathroom if I had staff who came and cleaned it thoroughly everyday!

[rlw]

We did a small shower room in matte white tiles and it looked fking horrible. The room shape was lost as all the different faces blended into one enormous white hole. The tiles came off the next day and were replaced with high gloss and the room looked a million times better.

IMO, gloss tiles are easy to clean and don't show dirt and discolouration as badly as matte tiles. I clean the tiles in our main shower every other week, just wiping them down with a chammy type cloth in between, and it takes no more than ten minutes to have them looking like new again.

[johnnyBv8]

rlw said:

We did a small shower room in matte white tiles and it looked fking horrible. The room shape was lost as all the different faces blended into one enormous white hole. The tiles came off the next day and were replaced with high gloss and the room looked a million times better.

IMO, gloss tiles are easy to clean and don't show dirt and discolouration as badly as matte tiles. I clean the tiles in our main shower every other week, just wiping them down with a chammy type cloth in between, and it takes no more than ten minutes to have them looking like new again.

Thanks - what did you do for the floor? We have soft water and I’m not too concerned about the cleaning - so it’s more around aesthetics and safety/slips.

[johnnyBv8]

This is a better illustration of the look, thanks to chatGPT

Edited by johnnyBv8 on Monday 2nd June 13:04

[OutInTheShed]

The striking thing in that image is two colours of panel that don't belong together, the white is just blank nothing.

[Craikeybaby]

Interesting. We were looking at tiles the other week and found some that we liked - would likely be just for a "feature" area in the shower cubicle, but they were ruled out because they were matte. Maybe we should reconsider.

[Mr Pointy]

Pinterest is always a useful source of images of how something might look:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/389983648996120251/

Avoiding marble effect all over would be the first change to make.

[deeen]

OutInTheShed said:

The striking thing in that image is two colours of panel that don't belong together, the white is just blank nothing.

I think the floor needs to be a different colour, then you could have non-slip floor ties and gloss wall. Also agree the 2 different coloured woods look wrong together.

[johnnyBv8]

Craikeybaby said:

Interesting. We were looking at tiles the other week and found some that we liked - would likely be just for a "feature" area in the shower cubicle, but they were ruled out because they were matte. Maybe we should reconsider.

That’s just a GPT image to give a general idea for the purposes of discussing the tiles (the actual unit is an ash vintage washstand which will be tied in with a mirror).

Edited by johnnyBv8 on Monday 2nd June 12:06

[johnnyBv8]

deeen said:

OutInTheShed said:

The striking thing in that image is two colours of panel that don't belong together, the white is just blank nothing.

I think the floor needs to be a different colour, then you could have non-slip floor ties and gloss wall. Also agree the 2 different coloured woods look wrong together.

Most of the tiles I’ve been looking at come in matt or gloss options, so for coherence I was planning to use the same tile -albeit potentially with a different wall vs floor finish. Seems to be quite commonly recommended on tile sites, but in my original post that’s one of the things I was asking if anyone had experience of.

[johnnyBv8]

Mr Pointy said:

Pinterest is always a useful source of images of how something might look:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/389983648996120251/

Avoiding marble effect all over would be the first change to make.

Thanks - that was the reason for the panelling.. to avoid the “marble everywhere” look

[Watcher of the skies]

johnnyBv8 said:

Im currently planning my bathroom refurb. Two of the walls will be panelled (to around 1m, with painted wall above - wall to left of image and a boxed in section under windows). The remaining 2 walls will be full height tiled and the floor will also be tiled. I ve attached an image of the general plan - it s just rough and ready and uploaded for context not the reason for the post.

We re going with marble effect porcelain. I ve been looking at slip ratings for bathroom tiles and think I probably need a matt tile for the floor to avoid them being too slippy. I m not sure if it will look odd to have a combo of matt and gloss in the same tile - has anyone done this? Options:

1) Matt floor and gloss walls
2) All in matt
3) All in gloss

Thanks

How much clearance is there between the bath and the shower cubicle?

[Sheepshanks]

We have a fully light grey matt tiled en-suite wetroom. It's about 3M x 2M.

One thing to be aware of with matt tiles is they soak up a lot of light. The builders wanted to put 4 downlights in the ceiling - I got them to fit 5 (2 over the shower) and it was hopeless. Ended up changing them for 8W units that are selectable cool white / white / bright white. The white looks OK. Bright white makes it look like a laboratory.

[johnnyBv8]

Watcher of the skies said:

johnnyBv8 said:

How much clearance is there between the bath and the shower cubicle?

150mm each side of a 1600w bath, then a glass screen, then a 900w walk-in shower As I say, the rough mock ups were just to give context to the question about matt or gloss - the shower isn t even in the right orientation, and incorrectly shows it in a cubicle.

I’m going to delete the layout and the ChatGPT images, as they were intended to help but are just a distraction to the question about matt or gloss tiles - or a combination.

Edited by johnnyBv8 on Monday 2nd June 13:11

[OutInTheShed]

Sheepshanks said:

We have a fully light grey matt tiled en-suite wetroom. It's about 3M x 2M.

One thing to be aware of with matt tiles is they soak up a lot of light. The builders wanted to put 4 downlights in the ceiling - I got them to fit 5 (2 over the shower) and it was hopeless. Ended up changing them for 8W units that are selectable cool white / white / bright white. The white looks OK. Bright white makes it look like a laboratory.

We went for 5 downlights and a kind of LED striplight thing over the mirror/basin.
The striplight does a lot of the work, scattering light from a white painted wall above the mirror., and from the ceiling.
Downlights are meh really, but you need (IMHO), several light sources in a room.
Our tiles are shiny but textured IYSWIM, so scatter a fair bit of light. A couple off walls are a colour, not white or white-ish

[Sheepshanks]

OutInTheShed said:

We went for 5 downlights and a kind of LED striplight thing over the mirror/basin.
The striplight does a lot of the work, scattering light from a white painted wall above the mirror., and from the ceiling.
Downlights are meh really, but you need (IMHO), several light sources in a room.
Our tiles are shiny but textured IYSWIM, so scatter a fair bit of light. A couple off walls are a colour, not white or white-ish

OK, but you've got shiny tiles. My point was specifically about matt tiles as the OP is considering those.

We do have a hefty sized illuminated mirror - on its own you can see what you're doing in the bathroom but it adds nothing once the downlights are on.

[johnnyBv8]

We’re off topic again, but I found in previous properties that downlights aren’t ideal in a bathroom as they glare when you’re staring up at them from the bath!