How To Lay Ceramic Or Porcelain Floor Tiles Part 2

By Johnathan Cunnings

Now that we have finished with the technical planning and preparation, the next step is the deciding factor when applying tiles. It is simply choosing floor tile patterns, tile colors and sizes. Let us assume, for this guide, a room which has a perfectly square size of 84 square feet and no funny shaped protrusions.

Tile size is important to floor tile patterns because it will affect the pattern design insomuch as more tiles give you less options to make a complex design (unless you have an enormous room) whereas smaller tiles will require a lot more effort to put down than their smaller counter parts. Likewise larger tiles can be cut into interesting shapes such as flowers, little animals (for a child’s room) and the like where with small tiles, it would be immeasurably more difficult to do such things.

One last, but important, thing to consider when deciding on a pattern for tiles is how many extra tiles you will need to get. It is generally considered a good idea for beginners to get roughly 15% extra tiles depending on the complexity of the cutting. Also, placing tiles diagonally will lead to much higher wastage than if you place them in a normal position so you should take that all into account.

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Another thing to remember with these tiles is what room you are going to place them in. Take the living room for example. Living rooms should not have glossy tiles which makes ceramic tiles perfect for use in living rooms. However, if you are thinking of putting tiles in a child’s room then solid color ceramic tiles are a great idea. Mixing and matching various colors can give the child’s room a very cheery and happy feel that will rub off on the children… and we all know how priceless a child’s happiness is.

Kitchen tiles should be chosen for ease of cleaning (after all, cooking is hardly ever a clean job) and inexpensive to maintain. Ceramic is great for kitchens because it is so easy to maintain. The installation costs might be higher but the maintenance is almost zero. Bathroom tiles will have the greatest impact on how you feel in the bathroom. It is the first thing anyone and everyone notices when they walk in. They must also be able to withstand a lot of water being splashed on them which is why porcelain tiles are the best, and most common, tiles in use in bathrooms today.

The color of floor tile patterns is one of subjective choice and is best dictated by the colors you want on the walls (or have on the walls in the case of replacing tiles). It is important to remember that using light grout on dark tiles (and vice versa) will make the spaces stand out more, whereas using dark grout with dark tiles will accentuate the tiles themselves. This all depends on the actual design of any tile floor patterns you are making and is a completely subjective point.

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Source: isnare.com

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