Hi Ozbargain,
I am currently trying to choose flooring options for the living area (kitchen, lounge, dining) of my new house.
We are considering timber/wood look tiles as one of the options.
Would like to know if anyone has them in their house and if they would recommend them?
All advice greatly appreciated.
Thank You.
Not right now no. Just me and my partner.
The disadvantages of tiles doesn't really bother us as we like the durability and easy maintenance of tiles. We're more concerned about the aesthetics.
Yes, they look good with real grains texture
The workmanship is more important for a good looking wooden tile flooring - Pattern offset laying & Grout joint sizing
That's right, as a Tiler, I can say that laying these are not quite as straight-forward as laying square tiles, so make sure you employ a Tiler who has used these several times before.
Things to look for, make sure the floor is really level because any hollows/bumps in the floor means the tiles will lip. Using these tiles and laying them in a staggered fashion amplifies this risk.
Make sure the Tiler doesn't leave the serrated adhesive exposed for too long before laying the tile too as this will cause it to skin over and not stick well, this is also common with these tiles and I've seen first hand, tiles coming loose in a few weeks/months after.
A well laid job with these tiles can look fantastic but and I would highly recommend them but just make sure you pay the money yo get a good job done. Expect to pay around $80 per m2 minimum for a good tiler.
@gooddealmate: Thank you for the input mate. Much appreciated. So would traditional 600mm x 600mm tiles be less risky to lay? The thought of having an uneven/loose tile scares me. Also, what colour traditional tiles would you recommend for a classic and timeless look?
@Hunter14: Yeah, 600x600 is pretty much the norm these days, so you'd have far less potential problems arising by using these.
Would be cheaper to lay too. Around $50 per m2 would be about the cheapest price to lay.
As for colours, my favourite has always been gloss white with rectified edges but these can get dirty quickly and take a bit of looking after, so not ideal if you have kids or wear shoes in the house.
Most popular at the moment is polished concrete effect tiles which is also nice but I'm not sure how long that will stay in fashion for. Your guess would be as good as mine.
🙂👍
Tiles are awful. If it's open plan and you really want tiles in the kitchen because of water spills etc you're better off doing tiles just there with a contrasting transition to engineered floorboards in the rest. This can look really good depending on what you choose and how you lay them out, obviously not in a straight line transition, something interesting. Even better, straight up polished concrete in the kitchen, looks amazing next to wood.
I hear you and you're right, the reason we want tiles is for the kitchen. I don't think I've ever seen a house with two types of flooring transition but I will check it out.
We put bamboo through the house after considering wood-look tiles.. kind of regret not going with tiles I can say.
Too much worry re: spills and damage on wood/bamboo (although we haven't had trouble with them in the kitchen area after 2 years) - there were all kinds of other issues with the installer that have been painful to address (like not leaving sufficient gaps where floors meet the walls leading to buckling and shoddy cutting/nailing of planks & skirting). Coldness of tiles can be addressed by using rugs and via choice of tiles.. with some having a softer & warmer feel than others.
Cons of tiles being a bit echoey and the worry of falls if you have (or will have) young kids.
We purchased it for our previous house and loved it. We wished we put it in the whole house. As mentioned above, they had grains along it & looked good.
To each their own I guess.
We put commercial vinyl planks down and our neighbour loved it so much she pulled up her tiles and carpet to put down the same. The Inovar planks we have can go into the kitchen too. Very hardy too - have accidentally dropped some sharp objects and not even a dent.
Oh and less slippery when wet than the tiles in our house.
they're the same as normal tiles , just comes in planks
tiles are cold and hard
do you have kids or pet ?