First floor bathroom floor choices

[Craig89]

As a slight extension to my subfloor choices I am wondering what people do for floor coverings in upstairs bathrooms. Obviously an upstairs bathroom isnt exactly period but that doesnt mean I wouldnt like a period looking floor. The suite will be period styled, roll top bath etc

Obviously there were floorboards in that room originally but due to the extension and layout changes that had to go, it was also pretty much impossible to lift without damage as it had been nailed through the tongue and grooves .

I would potentially like an exposed floorboard floor but how does that cope with the wet environment of a bathroom?

I dont want to tile it because I dont want the resulting step up into the room.

Happy to listen to your experiences and opinions.

Thanks, Craig

 

[Owain]

tile effect vinyl. Waterproof, flexible, non-slip.

Black and white tile should work for most periods. Add a cork bath mat and a chrome across-the-bath tidy for the loofah

 

[Abi Cott]

Lvt or karndean?

 

[Craig89]

Those options are probably best from a practical point of view and will definatly be considered. However we dont own period properties because they are practical do we :lol:

Does anybody have experience of exposed floorboards in a bathroom or kitchen environment? Can they be sealed to help prevent the ingress of water?

 

[Me!]

Yes, we have pine floorboards in a family bathroom.
They were painted with Osmo Polyx Satin eleven years ago and are still fine over the vast majority of the floor, but the area around the hand basin and shower which gets regularly splashed is definitely overdue for a re-paint.

 

[Kearn]

Yes, 3 years ago I pulled out the tiles and ply from our first floor bathroom. Under which are early Georgian wide pitch pine boards. Under those are the original Tudor oak boards, but as this was the service end, they aren't attractive or laid nicely / flat like the rest of the first floor.

So we stuck with the Georgian boards, which conveniently gave me a void for the bath waste. Sanded back and finished with Bona Mega which I appreciate is water based. However, sealing the boards against water for us is a pointless exercise, due to the gaps between them. We'd rather be careful with prevention in the first place than lazy about wet feet etc. As any water passing through will pool on the Tudor oak and do damage we can't see, before soaking the lath and lime in the room ceiling below.

That said this isn't a heavily used bathroom beyond toilet and teeth, the main shower is elsewhere so being well disciplined is easier. But the room looks a thousand times better to us than being covered with another finish.

 

[masochists-r-us]

We went for oak effect Karndean and haven't regretted our decision, on the basis of looks and practicality. We have new wide plank oak boards everywhere else upstairs and tbh you can hardly tell the difference between the two.

 

[88v8]

In the period bathroom we had built in our previous house, we used oak t&g flooring.
I coated it with two-pack varnish.

The boards were old, so there was no shrinkage over (hot) pipe runs. I've seen unseasoned oak floors laid over ch pipes where huge gaps have opened up.

With two careful adults, the floor was fine for the 21 years we were there.

However, in one of our bedrooms we had wood-effect vinyl. So good, most people didn't realise it wasn't the real thing.
That pattern seems to be NLA, but here's an option.
https://www.atrafloor.com/floors/galleon/

Not cheap, but the sort of thing one only needs to do once.

If you're not planning to stay in the house and want something cheap n cheerful, options from Carpetright.
https://www.carpetright.co.uk/vinyl/web-style/wood

Whatever you do, ensure the bath installers are blooming careful. One can make serious dents with a cast-iron bath.

Ivor

 

[plasticpigeon]

I have put wood effect vinyl on ply in my bathroom. It is a small room and I have been asked on a few occaisions what I varnished the floorboards with!! I chose it because if I need to pull up the floor, which isn't beyond the realms of possibility in a wonky old house, it will be pretty easy to do so. A tiled floor would be a nightmare to remove and a nightmare to repair.

 

[plasticpigeon]

However, in one of our bedrooms we had wood-effect vinyl. So good, most people didn't realise it wasn't the real thing.
That pattern seems to be NLA, but here's an option.
https://www.atrafloor.com/floors/galleon/

Not cheap, but the sort of thing one only needs to do once.

That looks quite remarkable, much better than the cheap stuff I used that still fools most people!

 

[Craig89]

However, in one of our bedrooms we had wood-effect vinyl. So good, most people didn't realise it wasn't the real thing.
That pattern seems to be NLA, but here's an option.
https://www.atrafloor.com/floors/galleon/

Not cheap, but the sort of thing one only needs to do once.

That looks quite remarkable, much better than the cheap stuff I used that still fools most people!

It has a quite remarkable price too

 

[Craig89]

I hope to be in this property for a good number of years thats why im trying to get it right now. I think a wood effect vinyl might be the way to go. What vinyl did you use plasticpigeon?

 

[plasticpigeon]

The brand was definitely Tarkett. It is nothing special at all, but one design was definitely more convincing than the others. I think it was this one.

https://home.tarkett.co.uk/en_GB/collection-C000107-homestyle/flanders-beige-brown

The one disappointing feature is that the photo they have used has reasonably short strips of wood, probably only a metre or so, so it looks like an engineered floor rather than floorboards. On the flip side it's been down 4 years now and still looks as good as it ever did so it is pretty hard wearing. I would recommend going to a flooring seller and having a leaf through the various books to make sure you are happy with the look.

 

[steveb]

we used tarkett "istanbul grey" vinyl, came on a roll, dirt cheap to buy, dirt cheap to fit and looks pretty good - and will be waterproof. Most of the work and cost was in the preparation - we needed a new sub-floor which I think was basic 18mm flooring chipboard as the previous boards had been long destroyed by either previous owners or water leaks, which we then put a levelling compound over to make it perfectly flat.

https://www.garant.nu/tarkett-trend-200-istanbul-medium-grey-4.html

it's also available in English

I think the floor cost either £10 or £15/m2 and fitting was £45

 

[Feltwell]

I have a natural aversion to anything that looks "fake", I hate the tile-effect vinyl we have in our ensuite (though I've managed to put up with it for 12 years so far! :lol: ). But - I have to admit - that atrafloor is remarkable. The Tarkett Istanbul Grey is quite nice as well.

 

[88v8]

... that atrafloor is remarkable.

The stuff we laid, I now recall, was Rhinofloor. Also expensive. Laid in 1986 and still perfect when we moved in 2012.
It fooled most people.
I think this atrafloor is made the same way, based on photographs of a real floor.

The underfloor needs to be really flat, no bumps no uneven joins, as any imperfections will eventually print through. I overlaid our floorboards with hardboard, nailed with ring nails at 9" centres.

Ivor

 

[steveb]

Ah that word rings a bell - Rhinofloor being Tarkett's brand of cushioned vinyl, so it's the same stuff as we fitted (with the same amount of floor prep)

Found a slightly shoddy picture of it as Istanbul Grey in action

 

[Owain]

I have a natural aversion to anything that looks "fake",

Although there is a long history of cheap materials being made to look pawsh, and if the Victorians et al had had PVC they'd have had boys on their hands and knees laying down sheets of nasty chemicals before polishing it up to look like tile or marble.

 

[Craig89]

That looks good that does steve. I could certainly be tempted by something like that especially at that money. Fake tiles sits better with me than fake wood :lol:.

I agree with what your saying Owain...just look how the Victorians stained the perimeter of rooms darker to make them look like something better than pine, as one example.

But to spend £60m2 on something that looks like wood when you can get real wood for less just doesnt feel right. (Thats obviously the extreme end of the scale).

Victorians had linoleum at the end of the day and I would imagine that what steve has could be relatively acturate in terms of design

 

[plasticpigeon]

Here is my vinyl fake wood. I went for wood as the floor was floorboards originally so I thought this was the best bet at replicating what was there. My house is from around 1902-3 and it definitely had an upstairs bathroom when buit despite being a smallish house. Good old Joe Chamberlain was very forward thinking when he was mayor and was instrumental in providing Birmingham with clean drinking water and modern sewers and I imagine Birmingham must have been a good place to live once upon a time. Anyway I am certain my bathroom never ever had tiles as a floor covering but I think it could well have had lino or oilcloth. Real lino is very expensive and the stuff i have seen seems to have a marble type effect, presumably because it is made of pretty unfrefined materials that have some natural colour variation. With no evidence or precedent to follow I thought I would try and replicate the wood floor boards. Personally I am happier with fake wood than fake tiles.

The problem with any laminate type wood effect is that is has no depth, where as wood grain effect well executed does. It may not look exactly like wood, but the effect stands up on its own merits. It's hard to predict what he Victorians would or wouldn't have done. I imagine they would have embraced modern materials if they existed in that era but perhaps in a more tasteful or at least decorative way, but who knows, as we are the same species just a couple of generations along and we seem to have a completely different aesthetic, who knows why.