Browse Forums Bathrooms and Laundry 1 Dec 08, 2009 9:30 am Hi everyone, I have read a lot of posts about white tiles being difficult to keep clean, specially the grout. Is this the case mainly with floor tiles or wall tiles too? I am going crazy trying to pick our tiles. I am thinking of going with a Latte colour porcelain large floor tiles, and white wall tiles in the shower etc. Our cabinets are a chocolate brown colour. And how do I make the white tiles look great and avoid having a bathroom that looks like public toilets! Please help. I am having a difficult time deciding. Re: White tiles??? 2Dec 08, 2009 10:05 am Wall tiles are fine - I personally don't think that they are any harder / easier to keep clean then any other colour. All of our minor ensuites have white wall tiles with a coloured feature tile. Floor tiles I would never do in white - only because of every little bit of dirt and hair showing up. Our floor tiles are all the colour of the feature tile to tie the scheme all in together. You can have your tiles and / or grout sealed to help keep them nice and fresh looking. Some things are worth waiting for. Re: White tiles??? 4Dec 08, 2009 6:24 pm We have used white tiles and grout for our bathrooms and although we haven't moved in, I am regretting that decision already due to fear of keeping them clean, although we spoke to the builder today who suggested a sealer on the grout, which we will do in hope of them staying a little bit whiter for longer, or at the very least, easier to clean. After saying all that, I WOULD NOT go for white tiles and grout in bathrooms, silly silly me! Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13002 Site start: 8th July 2009 Handover: 11/12/2009! 5 months total build time. 40 sqs of luxuary...Bliss! Re: White tiles??? 5Dec 08, 2009 7:50 pm My SIL has white porcelain through her house and the grout pretty much looks black, the tiles however look great as it gives them more definition so go figure. We have white tiles and our tiler has used an off white grout with a sealer so they are very easy to keep clean. Re: White tiles??? 6Dec 08, 2009 9:22 pm We had white tiles in our old ensuite - floor and wall - and in the five years we lived there I never had a problem keeping them or the grout looking good. The house we are now renting has dark brown tiles which are only a year old and look awful. The grout is discoloured and the tiles have white watermark type stains on them in places. Re: White tiles??? 8Dec 14, 2009 9:20 am Walls - not a problem. Floors - a little harder to keep clean. That being said, grout is hard to keep perfectly clean no matter what colour. I don't have white floor tiles, but have them on the walls in the bathrooms (i would think it may look pretty "stark" with white floor and wall tiles). I just finished re-grouting the tiles in my house for the sale. The tiles themselves don't lose their look, so everything looks new again. Blog is now up - http://www.jbdave.blogspot.com/ Re: White tiles??? 9Dec 14, 2009 9:32 am I went through this exact thing when picking our tiles. I ended up choosing a vanilla type colour, probably like an Ivory. I have a stoney type floor tile (porcelain). There is no way on earth I would consider white tiles on the floor (just a personal thing), I couldn't stand the anxiety in trying to keep them clean. It would have me in tears. I eventually decided against the white on the walls just as a personal choice due to the starkness of it all. I wanted a more relaxed feel in my bathooms. We have white on the walls in our rental at the moment. In the shower it's a bit of a pain, re mould, but the rest of the walls seem to be ok to keep clean. I think it also depends on the look you want as well. Sealing them is a great idea I think. www.themaxbuild.blogspot.com forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=20717&start=300 www.leahspaperpassion.blogspot.com Re: White tiles??? 10Dec 14, 2009 12:15 pm We re-did our bathroom earlier this year and I went with 600x300mm white gloss rectified tiles on the walls with white grout - I love it! I also tiled from floor to ceiling and the room is so much brighter now. It used to have awful creamy/peachy coloured tiles with a floral pattern - blergh! Hopefully these pics come out ok. I used charcoal porcelain tiles on the floor and stuck to white and silver for the fittings - means I can use whatever colour I like for the accessories. I don't find them any harder to keep clean than the yucky tiles we had before (well much easier because the grout isn't falling out!). I am currently having our newly built bathroom tiled almost the same, but with silver glass mosaics in the recessed niches for a bit of a feature. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: White tiles??? 12Dec 16, 2009 8:42 pm I have white tiles on the floor and wall, I have an aqua mosaic on the bath hob, and could not pick a floor colour other than white that matches. I went for a dark grey grout. You can see the dust and hair, but I use a plege grab it duster and its not too bad. I also have white polished porcelain and that over 90m2 is more of a hassle.
Re: White tiles??? 13Dec 29, 2009 4:55 pm littleredrobyn - your bathroom is lovely! I just showed it to DH and he loves it too. Where did you get your vanity? I love the idea of having it on the wall - much easier to clean the floors. Your layout is very similar to ours (we have a bath where your toilet is, our toilet is separate) so it's very easy to see that as our bathroom! Re: White tiles??? 15Dec 31, 2009 12:46 pm Thanks Themax and AlmondEyes We are really happy with it. I bought the vanity online from renovation boys - but don't really recommend them as far as customer service goes unfortunately. The vanity is great though and I really love having the wall hung style. We used to have a shower/bath in there but replaced it with the toilet, so our bathrooms sound very similar! We have just built a 2nd bathroom which has the bath instead. Re: White tiles??? 16Jan 14, 2010 9:13 am In our designs we always look at the pc items as well when making selections. White is simple to work with but you can have too much white on white. With white PC items we generally go for a tile with a little movement and colour in its base. This tends to lift the PC items and draw the eye to them, and secondly adds practicality as the tile tends to hide far more. With floor we try to steer clients away from white....actually solids in general. Yes white shows a lot, but if the tils is a solid colour be it black, brown, pink......it will still show - unless the same colour is on it. A motley tile is a practical alternative, can still be dark or light, warm or cool, but the movement adds lots of practicality for a bathroom floor. At the end of the day it comes to what one likes and what one is willing to live with. The beauty of choice.... Charlie Re: White tiles??? 17Jan 14, 2010 9:46 am Hi Zedman, what does it mean "pc items" and "white PC items" ? P. S. I am regretting I changed our selection from white to beige on the walls Was not scared so much of the cleaning, as of the whiteness of the room ... BTW, we have (very old) coloured tiles in our rental, which I once sprayed with bleach (due to mould) and forgot to splash with water after a few minutes. The tiles ended up loosing some of the colour ... my bad. Fortunately, they are already very old and slightly discoloured in some spots, so it's hard to notice this without knowing what actually happened. Which all makes me worried - how am I going to keep non-white tiles with white grout really clean!!?!? If it's all white, it's (or should be??) much easier. If I had another chance, I would embrace the all-white, white-on-white, and then yet some more white My signature is distracting people from my wise posts ... Re: White tiles??? 19Jan 14, 2010 11:53 am Hi Lex Look all comes to choice. We always try to suggest a blend of look and practicality. Some people embrace the total white look as clean and pristine, others find it bland, cold and clinical. No real right or wrong. I think you have etched the glaze on your tiles. Even if it was a white tile the same may have occured resulting in a different look. Mostly likely not as noticeable as a coloured tile but definetly still different to the white tiles that may have not been affected. Cheers Re: White tiles??? 20Jan 14, 2010 2:07 pm bel PC items are toilets, bath, vanity, shower screen etc. I *think* it stands for prime cost edited - spelling Ah, OK, I did think of that right away, but somehow it didn't make sense to me in the context, eg. in "we always look at the pc items as well when making selections" - since PCIs (as far as I know) include all fixtures or fittings, eg. the bathroom stuff, kitchens, robes, windows, architraves, cornices, doors, etc., all of it ... Anyway, thanks Bel - all sorted!! BTW, it's a bit of a relief knowing that I could have damaged white tiles in the similar way My signature is distracting people from my wise posts ... thanks. the above one is white Mat tiles and have gripness so going for this Mat tiles for both indoor and outdoor. Beaumont told it can be used in both indoor and… 2 1668 Looking for advice on whether this variation in tile colour is acceptable. The large tile on the left was used in my main bathroom renovation 1 year ago. My ensuite… 0 8489 Dover white or surfmist garage door. I am having trouble choosing a garage door. The outside of house will be tranquel retreat. I want it to all blend nicely however I… 0 6819 |