Another minefield on the building journey is picking tiles, when is the right time to look? what size, colour, finish, should each bathroom be different? how will it work with the sanitary ware? what do you pick first? There is no exact science to designing a bathroom, sometimes I wish there was to remove the element of choice. I for one felt overwhelmed wandering around tile stores in the beginning, wondering what I liked and how I would I choose.
I eventually narrowed down my choice in February, there was plenty of stock and at a good price. But nothing stays static for long in retail. I was also warned if I ordered them then, they would need to be deliver within a month. So, I waited until we were ready to store the tiles. When they were due on site, I got a call to say the tiles were all different batch colours. Unfortunately, the tiles took another month to arrive after many exasperated calls. It was an unforeseen pain, as I had the tiler lined up. Even if you have all your ducks in a row, the international supply chain is beyond your control.
I decided on the same large format tile 120cm x 60cm for all the bathrooms, to add to the spacious and give continuity. I also didn’t have the headspace to be think about a different design for each bathroom. I would also minimise the wastage and reduces cost.
When our fantastic tiler Rob Webb started on site, we walked each room to agree the tiling layout to avoid small strip of tiles, centre the tiles and have continuous grout lines around the room. This may require more tile cutting, but the overall effect is much better. It’s important to show your taps to the tiler if they are wall mounted taps, so they know the right size hole to cut. All the drilling of tiles was done outside to minimise the dust in the house. The team Rob, Declan and Mike did a great job and were extremely precise with drilling and tiling around recesses. I choose a matt aluminium trim for the edge of tiles, as I felt the chrome would be too dazzling and catch your eye especially when using a matt tile.
Another consideration that the tile shops won’t tell you is the larger tile will cost more to install, as it’s really a two-man job due to the weight of the tiles. I can totally appreciate that when I saw the installation in process. Electrical suction pads are needed to lift the tile in place. Also, if the walls are anyway uneven, the large tile is unforgiving and more adhesive will be needed to make an even surface. Adhesive is not cheap, at €50 a bag, the costs quickly creep.
We used gunmetal grey grout and silicon, this looks really good with the grey tile, so grout is not the first thing you see when you go into the room.
I also didn’t make it easy for the crew with the high ceilings, but they handled it like pros, they were a great team to work with and left a very tidy site. It’s such a transformation to go from a plasterboard wall to an almost finished space, I can’t wait to see the sanitaryware go in and see all
