Choosing a new bathroom floor has two main aspects: practicality and looks.

The floor will get splashed, at least, and perhaps soaked, so it needs to be able to resist water and not get slippery when it’s wet. It needs to be easy to clean, especially if it’s to be installed in a heavily-used family bathroom. It must be able to be installed on the floor substrate that you have available – for example, a ceramic tile surface needs a substrate that does not flex, otherwise it will crack.

Bathroom flooring materials fall into two main categories: hard or resilient/soft.

Hard Bathroom Flooring Materials

These include:

• marble tiles or slabs
• stone tiles or slabs (eg limestone, slate or granite)
• terra-cotta tiles
• ceramic or porcelain tiles
• wood (solid wood or engineered)
• laminates (wood, stone or ceramic-look)

It’s very important that whatever hard material you choose has a non-slip surface, for safety in the bathroom, as well as being water-resistant.

Wood and laminate materials have to be carefully sealed and engineered in order to be water resistant, and may not be suitable for bathrooms where the floor is likely to get soaked, rather than just dripped on.

Most stones must be sealed, and re-sealed at regular intervals in order to resist water and stains.

Tiles of any kind require grouting, and grout requires sealing to prevent grout stains which are especially likely on a floor. Consider using a grout color which won’t show dirt, as well as sealing and resealing whenever necessary.

Resilient/Soft Flooring Materials

These materials are either soft, like carpet, or have a little “give” to them and can feel warmer and easier on the feet than the hard materials. Some examples are:

• rubber in sheets or tiles
• vinyl in sheets or tiles, cushioned or not
• linoleum
• cork
• carpet

Carpets in bathrooms go in and out of fashion, and are currently “out” – for good reason. A bathroom carpet will always get wet eventually, and moisture+carpet=mold. Carpet around a toilet will get nasty, sooner or later, unless the bathroom sees very little use. It’s much healthier to have a hard or resilient floor with removable rugs on top that can be easily removed, washed and dried, than to permanently install carpet.

Heated Floors

What could be better for bare feet than a warm floor in the bathroom! Floor heating systems are a great addition to your bathroom and because the space is usually fairly small, are not prohibitively expensive. Homes with hydronic (hot water) heating systems can run hot water tubes under the flooring, and others can install electric resistance heating wires. There are systems which will work with wood floors as well as hard stone or tile floors.

Small Bathrooms

Flooring choices for small bathroom designs have some unique limitations.

In a small bathroom, the floor space may not lend itself to custom borders or medallion designs, simply because you won’t see enough of the floor to make the design properly visible! On the other hand, because you don’t have to buy many square feet of the material, you may be able to splurge on something more expensive than if you had a larger area to cover.

Diagonal-set tiles make the small room look larger

To expand the floor space visually, there are some tricks you can use:

• Get as much as possible up off the floor, so as much floor can be seen as possible. That suggests a wall-hung toilet, pedestal sink, wall hung cabinets or cabinets on legs, and perhaps even a clawfoot tub.
• Make design lines extend as far as possible. In most bathrooms that would be diagonal lines, so consider planks set on the diagonal of you’re doing a wood-look floor, or diagonal tiles in a tile or tile-look floor.

So, what kind of bathroom decorations can you use to perk up the room?

Fabric items

There are the obvious fabric pieces like towels, shower curtains, window curtains and bathmat or rug, but you might also consider a curtain below a pedestal sink, lampshade covers, toilet seat and tank covers, a valance above a bath or shower alcove, waste basket cover or liner, or curtains in glass-door cabinets. Using all of these at once, especially in a small bathroom, would be overkill, so pick and choose what works best for you.

Sink, Shower and Tub Accessories

These include things like soap dispensers and soap dishes, tissue box holders, toothbrush holders, and waste baskets. You could change out all of these items at once for another matched set, or you could keep some of them in a plain solid color and just change out the others. Shower curtain rings come under this heading, too, and are an easy and cheap update.

Fixture Parts

Faucet handles can often be changed out, or can have decorative panels or parts which can be changed. Light fixtures might have standard size holders which will take different shades, or different colors of the same shape shade. Even changing bulbs can make a surprising amount of difference. Covers for shower curtain rods are an easy change which makes an older rod look much classier.

Semi-Permanent Bathroom Decorations

Some decorations are a little more work to install or remove, but are not as permanent as repainting. For example, wallpaper borders come in removable types, and can be used at the ceiling, picture rail or chair rail height, or to frame a tub alcove. Self-stick tile stickers or transfers can be added to your plain tiles for a whole new look, and removed when you tire of them. Painting tiles with ceramic paints, but not firing them in the oven, also results in a semi-permanent finish which can be scrubbed off with some effort.

Ornaments, Pictures and Knick-Knacks

Finally there is a huge range of decorative items which culd be used anywhere in the house, but which can be used in the bathroom as long as they won’t be damaged by moisture. Posters and postcards, framed or not; china or glass ornaments; wicker and rattan (which do better anyway in an atmosphere which is not too dry); even a collection of rubber duckies, all look great and make a complete change in the atmosphere and feel of a room.

Have fun with your bathroom decorations!