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mlouis

Glass accent tile in bathroom - Y/N & design help, please

mlouis
11 years ago

Hi,

We have gutted our small-ish L-shaped guest bathroom. The shower will be 36x48 with a sliding door and will be tucked away in the alcove of the L (if that makes any sense).

The floor and wall tiles will be 12x18" - a dark gray/brown color for the floor and an off-white for the walls (1/2 wall around the room, to the ceiling in the shower). The vanity will be dark brown with a white vanity top. The toilet and shower base will also be white. The fixtures will have a modern touch (satin finish).

I would appreciate your input/opinions/ideas/inspiration/pics!

Decision no. 1: add this mosaic accent tile we fell in love with or resist the "urge" in an effort to go with a more timeless look?

Decision no. 2: if we say yes to the accent tile, how/where to install it?

(a) vertically, in the middle of the the short side(s) of the shower
(b) horizontal strip (or two strips?) in the shower only (--> at what height?)
(c) use it on the vanity wall which is approx. 30" wide - either top to bottom in form of an accent wall or just one strip (--> concern: too many grout lines?)
(d) other ideas?

Thank you!

This post was edited by hrumor on Tue, Mar 19, 13 at 16:41

Comments (12)

  • jkoebnick
    11 years ago

    I am not a design or tile expert but I recently saw this bathroom...

    Here is a link that might be useful: [bathroom tile[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/mill-valley-ca-transitional-bathroom-san-francisco-phvw-vp~211661)

  • mlouis
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thanks, jkoebnick.

    I only ever thought of using the whole width of the accent tile - 12" I think - rather than a thinner strip which makes it less busy.

  • jules8
    11 years ago

    I love glass tile and have used it in 4 bath remodels. This photo is of my powder room and the tile is a glass & stone mix. another bath had a small shower and no bath tub and I put one strip of 6 inches of glass tile vertically all the way to ceiling in the shower. two other baths have glass & stone mix in a 2 1/2 inch horizontal strip around the tub alcove and a 6 inch strip as a vanity backsplash. you can see a photo of one of the baths on the thread I link to.

    I think most would say glass is a trend that will go out of style. But I think you should design for your preference. And I think glass/stone mosaics are beautiful.

    Here is a link that might be useful: glass mosaic

  • abfabamy
    11 years ago

    We are in the middle of our guest bath renovation and have installed similar tile as you are describing. Our white tile is 9 X 12 and our mosaiq is very much like yours, except ours has white marble where you have what looks like glass.
    We were thinking of doing one 6" stripe (getting 2 stripes out of 1 sheet) but we layed out the tile on the floor to gauge how the rows will fall on the wall and found that in order to not have a small sliver of tile at the ceiling or floor, we needed 2 stripes. This allowed only full tiles to be used with just an inch or less cut off the bottom row.
    We just finished grouting this past weekend and below is what two stripes looks like so far!

  • mlouis
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    @Jules8 - the accent wall turned out great, especially with that mirror. I noticed the accent in the bathtub niche, unfortunately, we're not planning to have one. : )

    @abfabamy - Am I seeing some sort of border between the white tile and the mosaic? I'll take some measurements and try to draw out a design pattern. Good luck with the rest of the project!

  • mlouis
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    @Jules8 - the accent wall turned out great, especially with that mirror. I noticed the accent in the bathtub niche, unfortunately, we're not planning to have one. : )

    @abfabamy - Am I seeing some sort of border between the white tile and the mosaic? I'll take some measurements and try to draw out a design pattern. Good luck with the rest of the project!

  • abfabamy
    11 years ago

    Yes, the mosaic is bordered by a thin limestone pencil tile. The white tile is thinner than the mosaic, so the pencil tile makes a nice transition between the two. This is not our tile, but it's the picture that inspired what we did with the pencil tile.

    Laying the tile out on the livingroom floor, just a single tile width, really helped to visualize what pattern we liked. I was going to do a full sheet of masaic (12") as the stripe, but when I laid it out it looked like too much mosaic. We played with the widths of the mosaic by cutting one sheet into 3" rows and adding or taking away sections to make different width strips. Doing this, coupled with taking the width of the cuts neccessary for the white tile into consideration really helped to visualize the look.

  • dekeoboe
    11 years ago

    Our hall bathroom with two six inch stripes. The field tiles are 12x24.

  • dedtired
    11 years ago

    Here is how I used the glass tile around the sink: subway,pencil, glass tile,pencil.

  • mlouis
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Your design is very sleek looking, dekeoboe. I really like it - also, that the large tile installed horizontally.

    @dedtired: I'll definitely keep the pencil tile idea in mind. Yours turned out great.


    Did most of you deal with restocking fees? And did the 10% waste rule work for you?

  • abfabamy
    11 years ago

    I didn't deal with restocking fees because my accent tiles were from Lowe's, my field (white tiles) were from Menard's, and my pencil tiles and travertine floor tiles were ordered from The Tile Shop where there is no restocking fee. Because of my no restock fee purchases, I way overbought the accent and field tile and returned unused tiles. I did add a little over 10% on the floor tiles, but then decided to lay it on the diagonal, so we used every possible scrap to complete the job!

  • dekeoboe
    11 years ago

    My glass tile came from Lowe's too. It was on super sale, so we bought all they had and returned what we didn't need. (And now I am kicking myself because I would like to tile the whole wall over the vanity and don't have enough tile.)

    The field and floor tile came from The Reuse Warehouse and Habitat Restore, so no restocking fee because no returns.