Porcelain, ceramic or natural stone on stall shower ???

[Beacon]

We are redoing a stall shower and I thought I was all set with some ceramic tile I picked out. However, one of the contractors bidding suggested I use natural stone on the shower floor and walls. He's really creative and I've seen some of his work, which is gorgeous. However I am uncertain and wonder if, for example, a travertine floor is a big, bad mistake. Mold? High maintenance? Break down?

I worry!

Anyone have experience? I'm not the type who will do a lot of maintenance, I'll be honest! Should I stay with ceramic tile?

 

[Laila619]

We're in the middle of remodeling hell now, lol. I have done a TON of research on tile and I know more than I ever did two months ago. I would stick with a porcelain tile. They are nearly impervious to water and are very durable. Natural stone/travertine etc. needs a bit more maintenance and care. It usually requires sealing and you have to be very careful with what you use to clean it. It's definitely a beautiful look, but if you want less maintenance, I'd go with porcelain. Nowadays, they have porcelain that looks virtually identical to travertine or even slate, without the fuss. There are SO many options now! You no longer have to go with a boring plain monochromatic tile.

 

[ksinger]

Ditto the porcelain tile that mimics natural stone. If you haven't seen them you need to. They are gorgeous. And if you really want low maintenence, consider choosing a large format tile - like a 12x24: fewer grout lines to clean, and a modern, clean-lined look.

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/2001491/list/Design-an-Easy-Clean-Bathroom

Oh, and remember - grout line width is YOUR choice as the customer, NOT the tile guy's choice. Obviously you don't want to go too far outside the tile manufacturer's recommendation, but within certain parameters, your choice.

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Notwithstanding, slippery materials like marble and travertine and NONO's. Looks great if a #hip or concussion are your goals....

Just did BR #1 and Italian tile and it is awesome. BTW, 12 x 24 is a "look" you have to love--I preferred 12 x 12.

cheers--Sharon

 

[AmeliaG]

Oddly enough I've heard the opposite that Laila and Ksinger have, my contractor is recommending natural stone. There is a great variety of natural stones. They all have different properties; some are not as good as tile but some are much better.

I'm by no means an expert, this is my first renovation. Apparently, the main drawback of tile is the grout. It can wear away faster than the tile and cause tremendous leaks. That's the problems I've been plagued with for the past two years. I'm leaning towards the natural stone because I'm sick of regrouting.

 

[Beacon]

This is so helpful. Thank you!

Like most, I hate grout. However, I find that if I put Soft Scrub cleaner on it and just leave it there, like overnight, it really cleans and all I have to do is rinse it off.

canukGal, were your Italian tiles ceramic ones? Ksinger, I love Houzz! I've been studying those photos a lot lately. It's harder than choosing a ring setting for me!

At this moment my bathroom is a pile of rubble and I really have to make some quick decisions!

 

[ksinger]

HI:

Notwithstanding, slippery materials like marble and travertine and NONO's. Looks great if a #hip or concussion are your goals....

Just did BR #1 and Italian tile and it is awesome. BTW, 12 x 24 is a "look" you have to love--I preferred 12 x 12.

cheers--Sharon

Not entirely true. I've already purchased the 5/8" travertine mosaic for the shower floor. It's honed, but once you get all that grout in there it should be very "grippy". I'm going to ask that it be a sanded grout for the floor. You're right though, I wouldn't pick a big slab of the stuff for the floor, in or out of the shower.

I like pretty much all the large format tiles (says the girl leaning toward glass mosaic) and will do either 12x12s or 12x24s on the bathroom floor. What I don't care for is too much variation in the tile or dark tiles. Looks very 70's and closed in, to me.

I know you're in a crunch Beacon, but don't let the tile guy push you to stone if you want ceramic. If you already had something you liked, go with it. You can spend LIFETIMES pondering tile. Ceramic is still a classic choice and finding tile you like is never a problem, so go with what you like and what will give you the least trouble.

Good luck and let us know what you go with!

 

[Laila619]

Oddly enough I've heard the opposite that Laila and Ksinger have, my contractor is recommending natural stone. There is a great variety of natural stones. They all have different properties; some are not as good as tile but some are much better.

Very odd. Natural stone is generally pretty soft from everything I've been reading and researching. With natural stone, you still have to grout too.

All tiles have a PEI rating, which tells you how strong the tile is. 5 is the best, you can use it even in commerical applications. You want to get something rated 4 or higher. They also have ratings for how slip resistant they are. Again, the higher the number, the better. Something with a low slip resistance when wet could be very problematic in a bathroom.

 

[AmeliaG]

Oddly enough I've heard the opposite that Laila and Ksinger have, my contractor is recommending natural stone. There is a great variety of natural stones. They all have different properties; some are not as good as tile but some are much better.

Very odd. Natural stone is generally pretty soft from everything I've been reading and researching. With natural stone, you still have to grout too.

All tiles have a PEI rating, which tells you how strong the tile is. 5 is the best, you can use it even in commerical applications. You want to get something rated 4 or higher. They also have ratings for how slip resistant they are. Again, the higher the number, the better. Something with a low slip resistance when wet could be very problematic in a bathroom.

Natural stone has a similar rating scale. We're looking at granite which I had previously eliminated because there's a lot of variances in hardness, chemical resistance and permeability - some varieties have very good ratings. You can also get a matte finish that is not slippery at all. My sister-in-law had this type of finish installed on some of her granite countertops in the kitchen where she didn't want the slip. You can get the same finish for marble but marble is prohibitively expensive and prohibitively soft.

With natural stone the grout is almost invisible without affecting stability and some stones can inhibit mildew. I wonder if what ksinger is mentioning about the ability to choose grout thicknesses different than the contractor's suggestions is related to this. I could have selected a tile grout thickness narrower than suggested but it would have been significantly narrower and that did not give me a warm and fuzzy. I don't want to deal with re-doing my bathroom again. Can you tell I am sick of working on my bathroom?

I don't think my contractors are totally off the wall because beacon's contractors recommended the same thing. Contractors' recommendations may take into account the prevailing weather. I know my climate affects the building materials recommended. I live in a moist climate that gets lots of rain.

 

[rainwood]

Amelia G -

I'd question the advice you're getting from your contractor. Within the last 3 years, we've done a major remodel (including a bath) and are just finishing building a second home from the ground up. One of the things I've learned is that contractors say a lot of things, only some of which are accurate or good ideas.

As KSinger and others have said, anything you put in your shower is going to have grout and grout lines, even if it's natural stone. That's not a reason to choose stone over tile. Choose stone if you like it better than anything else, but that should be the only reason. It is higher maintenance than a good porcelain tile (which is what we used in all the shower stalls although we did put natural stone in as an accent tile in one). I live in the PNW and so also have a very rainy climate and that doesn't factor in at all into the choice of materials. It's a shower and is designed to get wet!

The other thing is that grout should not be your only line of defense against water penetration. When we've done showers, we make sure that they've lined the showers with a Kerdi or Wedi liner (a flexible product designed for this type of application) so that if (and probably when) water gets behind the tile, it just runs down the liner and into a drain below. That's more important than the kind of tile you use, and I'd never build a shower again without having some sort of liner. That's why all the old types of showers eventually leak and rot the wood and cause mold. They don't have this newer technology. It has nothing to do with the type of tile used.

 

[AmeliaG]

I didn't say I'm definitely going with stone, I am leaning that way though. This contractor is pretty good. I got good recommendations for his work and he generally doesn't make recommendations off the cuff. FWiW, he doesn't always recommend stone.

 

[Beacon]

On the excellent advice posted here I found a high end tile store and saw those Italian porcelains that look like stone. They are gorgeous! I had been shopping at DalTile before and didn't really fall in love, but this was a whole new and better experience. Apparently there are "rectified" porcelain tiles that are cut after they are fired and need almost no grout line at all as they are very "square", just like natural stone is cut.

The sales guy was a little snobby, which was funny - but he totally changed when he eyeballed my ring! Ack! I was dressed very badly except for that which only shows that a nice diamond goes a long way. Anyhow, he talked about the shower pan liners as well. He says the best is a so called "hot mopped" shower pan, which is lined with some kind of tar. He says this was done in the old days and not so much now. He did feel the liners were very important but not as complete or long lasting as the hot mopped pan, which for his own bathroom he would "simply insist upon".

I felt like a newbie diamond shopper visiting Cartier. I was a bit embarrassed to tell him the existing countertop was of Silestone quartz. That really did not sit so well with him, but he bounced back brightly after a bit.

This was a very fancy sort of store and I had tons of fun and think I will use them for the tiles. They had a huge selection, so I need to go back there but it made a big difference and I would not have thought of it except for these PS posts

 

[Laila619]

Amelia G -

I'd question the advice you're getting from your contractor. Within the last 3 years, we've done a major remodel (including a bath) and are just finishing building a second home from the ground up. One of the things I've learned is that contractors say a lot of things, only some of which are accurate or good ideas.

As KSinger and others have said, anything you put in your shower is going to have grout and grout lines, even if it's natural stone. That's not a reason to choose stone over tile. Choose stone if you like it better than anything else, but that should be the only reason. It is higher maintenance than a good porcelain tile (which is what we used in all the shower stalls although we did put natural stone in as an accent tile in one). I live in the PNW and so also have a very rainy climate and that doesn't factor in at all into the choice of materials. It's a shower and is designed to get wet!

The other thing is that grout should not be your only line of defense against water penetration. When we've done showers, we make sure that they've lined the showers with a Kerdi or Wedi liner (a flexible product designed for this type of application) so that if (and probably when) water gets behind the tile, it just runs down the liner and into a drain below. That's more important than the kind of tile you use, and I'd never build a shower again without having some sort of liner. That's why all the old types of showers eventually leak and rot the wood and cause mold. They don't have this newer technology. It has nothing to do with the type of tile used.

Yes, great post!

We're doing a Kerdi shower too for peace of mind.

I wonder if these contractors make more money on the natural stone? Or maybe they just think it's a more high-end look (now that I might agree with). Just too much maintenance for me. I've noticed that a lot of contractors recommend stuff for a home that looks absolutely beautiful, but long-term it might not be the best bet. For instance, my contractor was horrified that I wasn't going with new granite counters (I chose quartz instead). In his mind, granite is the best looking and the most high-end, and anything else just wasn't gonna cut it.

 

[Laila619]

On the excellent advice posted here I found a high end tile store and saw those Italian porcelains that look like stone. They are gorgeous! I had been shopping at DalTile before and didn't really fall in love, but this was a whole new and better experience. Apparently there are "rectified" porcelain tiles that are cut after they are fired and need almost no grout line at all as they are very "square", just like natural stone is cut.

The sales guy was a little snobby, which was funny - but he totally changed when he eyeballed my ring! Ack! I was dressed very badly except for that which only shows that a nice diamond goes a long way. Anyhow, he talked about the shower pan liners as well. He says the best is a so called "hot mopped" shower pan, which is lined with some kind of tar. He says this was done in the old days and not so much now. He did feel the liners were very important but not as complete or long lasting as the hot mopped pan, which for his own bathroom he would "simply insist upon".

I felt like a newbie diamond shopper visiting Cartier. I was a bit embarrassed to tell him the existing countertop was of Silestone quartz. That really did not sit so well with him, but he bounced back brightly after a bit.

This was a very fancy sort of store and I had tons of fun and think I will use them for the tiles. They had a huge selection, so I need to go back there but it made a big difference and I would not have thought of it except for these PS posts

LOL, nothing wrong with Silestone! That's what I'm getting in my new kitchen.

 

[Beacon]

Lalia, I have Silestone in my kitchen and one of the bathrooms and really like it. It's been there about 7 years, looks perfect, needs no maintenance and in general is really good.

One thing I know now is that if you want solid surface quartz, there are more options now than before and if you want to reduce the costs, there are ones out there so inexpensive. I went to a store here where they had solid surface quartz (made in China, mind you) where the whole huge slab was around $300-500 depending on the color. Some were on sale even cheaper. Then they can cut it for you or your countertop person can do so. If you wanted to change the edges (they all came with square edge), they charged $50 per linear foot to change it.

Anyhow, I do like the Silestone and am considering using it again for a different project - unless the thrifty part of me tries one of those unbranded cheaper ones.

edited to add: your contractor insists on granite, huh? Where I am granite is now the defacto "standard" countertop for even rental properties. It is so common and typical that people have almost had enuf of it. Many of the "quieter" quartz tops are in fashion due to their consistent color fields and ease of use for design. I didn't want granite at the time because it needed a sub counter support and supposedly I had to seal it periodically.

We did end up with a granite top in a different bathroom, we don't do anything to it as we are very lazy on that stuff, and it has been fine. So I say, pick what you like, not what the contractor likes!

 

[AmeliaG]

Oh believe me, beacon, I don't pick a bathroom surface so I can be stylish and up to date! My contractor warned me, 'OK, I'm not going to make a fashionable recommendation here." At this point, I'm all about functionality.

I'm a big proponent of getting what you like as long as you know the limitations of the materials you like.

 

[MsP]

Oh believe me, beacon, I don't pick a bathroom surface so I can be stylish and up to date! My contractor warned me, 'OK, I'm not going to make a fashionable recommendation here." At this point, I'm all about functionality.

I'm a big proponent of getting what you like as long as you know the limitations of the materials you like.

I think the feedback you're getting is for granite/natural stone TILES... however, are you talking about using slabs of granite? I know I've stayed in hotels that have full slabs for walls in the shower/bathroom area. In that case, there are just a few seams which will obviously have grout.


I worry about sealing natural stone. I know people who have tons of headaches with it...

 

[Beacon]

I am thinking tiles, not slabs. Though slab does have the advantage of just about no grout, I like the orderly look of tile. Seriously, you guys really helped me as I was at a dead end and now feel really excited about the possibilities.

 

[Austina]

Having done several bathroom remodels, I'd always go for ceramic. We have travertine in our kitchen and orangery, and they do have grout lines, otherwise how would you seal the gaps? Even if they're placed really close together, the gaps still need filling. Travertine also requires sealing and regular maintenance to keep it looking good.

You can get all sorts of fabulous ceramic tiles these days, even looking like travertine if that's what you want, with none of the high maintenance.

We did our master en suite recently and went for wood looking floor tiles, and glass and metal mosaics for the borders.

 

[Gussie]

Caution on using marble in a bathroom. I redid my bathroom a couple of years ago and used marble for countertops, shower bench and threshold, and a hex marble tile for the shower floor. The hex tile has been great because the mini hex pattern has enough roughness to not be slippery and hides any etch marks. It has been easy to clean (harsh cleaning products are a definite no though). You really have to baby marble countertops though. My husband set a coffee cup down and it etched a ring in no time. All drinks are now banned from my bathroom! I only allow them to be cleaned with gentle soap and water (kinda like jewelry!!!) I can't believe anyone would use marble in a kitchen!!!!

I should add that I love my marble counters so much though that I would do it again...

 

[lambskin]

Function over form or form over function...that is the question. I always wanted a slate bathroom with dark grout. No worries about stains, slips or dirty looking grout. Zen-Japanese design with natural wood color for cabinets. Looks great in a big bathroom but awfully dark in a small space. Now I think that look has been overdone and is outdated. Have fun in what you pick.

 

[Arcadian]

I'm here to tell you, do NOT do natural stone. In wet applications, you will have to reseal once a year. If you're in a cold climate you will hate that tile because it was stay cold (making your bathroom feel colder) You can't use many types of regular ol house hold cleaners on stone in showers.

I do advocate a good porcelain though. I have large format tiles in my showers here, which means very few grout lines. Love the shower here. The border is glass tiles and thankfully not too many.

 

[PierreBear]

Good luck with the remodeling work. I'll chime in that we have a spec home and didn't get to pick what we wanted but one of our showers has natural stone. I love the way it looks and yes there is white/off white grout. We sealed it when we first moved in and had all those concerns that ya'll are talking about. However, it's been almost 8 years and we haven't had any issues, including mildew. I just spray this grout/mildew cleaner once a week and all that grossness goes away on it's own. I don't even scrub it. Anyhow, maybe this isn't the norm but just wanted to share that we've been happy with our shower.

Btw - All those pictures on showers look great! Ya'll have quite the design eye!

 

[Matata]

I'm using granite for the shower walls and behind the vanity. We're reconfiguring the bathroom so that there will be only 2 interior walls (one of which will be frosted glass or decorative metal) and the other will house the shower head. The shower head wall will be the only one that might get a bit wet and the others are far enough way from the spray zone that maintenance will be a breeze. Heated floor will be large porcelain tile so no cold feeties for us in winter.

 

[kenny]

If I was remodeling (I never will) my number one priority when selecting materials would be durability and ease of keeping the surface clean, which I think would mean no grout and no seams.

How cool, nice, or currently in style it looks would take a back seat, if it even got into the car.

 

[t-c]

If you use natural stone, make sure it is sealed before it's even installed. Also you'll need to seal all the grouts. I personally would not go with natural stone again. Porcelain tiles as my second choice. My first: Corian, because it can be installed seamlessly with no grouts at all.

I hadn't considered Corian before until I saw the an architecture firm's portfolio and their Corian baths were so stylish (beautiful and practical)!