Porcelain Tile Questions

9 years ago

I'm still at the learning stage of building a home, but I have a couple of questions about tile.

First I'm concerned about the noise issue, while a lot will depend on the floor plan (I'm not planning on having an open design), I would like to know if anyone has or has seen houses without any rugs, which as I understand a lot of people have said is a necessity to soak up the echo factor. Rugs can also define spaces, so I'm also worried it will just look odd without that, if anyone has insight on this I would be very grateful.

Not a fan of rugs because we do a lot of running in the house.....yup we sprint inside. In all fairness you haven't lived till you've seen a cat peel out, with their legs churning and churning till they finally get traction and bolt out of the room, it's hilarious and if you work from home, it's great that it gets you up and running after them. I would really love to do cork, but if you can picture the cartoon like antics that happen.....I don't think they make a cork floor or a coating that could withstand that type of abuse (don't even get me started on the turkey and her Jurassic Park velociraptor imitations).

I will do cork in the kitchen, which is a no play zone, but would it be insane to have the rest of the first floor the same, including a no threshold walk in shower? Also would it been criminally insane to make it wood like porcelain tile too?

It would probably hurt the resale value, but in theory I wouldn't be moving again, and it will be a cash build, so no banks to worry about.

Oh and it will be in the Pacific Northwest, ICF walls, and passivehaus design ideas, thanks for any advice, tips or head shaking judgmental posts :D

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Comments (5)

bobbbieg
Original Author
9 years ago
TLDR:

Can you do wood like tile throughout most of the first floor, including an ADA shower without any rugs, or will there be a noise/echo factor and/or will it look odd to not have rugs to help visually define a space in a non open floor plan?

Thanks!
User
9 years ago
Wood floors echo too. Any hard surface will. Rugs aren't always needed if there are enough other soft surfaces in the room like upholstered items and draperies, with normal humanly dimensioned ceiling heights. And not an echo chamber of 12' high ceilings to bounce noise off of back and forth with concrete benches and wood blinds.

Be sure you read up and understand what it really takes to design a proper code compliant curbless shower. You really need to change materials there, just for aesthetic reasons. You will have a change of plane at the shwer threshold, and it looks better to do that with a different material. Or, you design the whole bathroom and house layout around working with the horizontal break in plane for the long side of the tile. It can be done, but it's much more constraining. Easier to just put in some pebbles. Less monotonous as well.
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bobbbieg
Original Author
9 years ago
As always, Holly you provide tremendous insight and knowledge, thank's for the informative post.

Yes, definitely keeping the ceilings to a more normal height, making sure whoever does the shower has verifiable experience on zero threshold showers, and as for the shower floor, pebbles? Are pebbles a better choice then a smaller sized tile, I would think that pebbles, might make it harder for a wheelchair.
dahoov2
9 years ago
Research cork in kitchen before you do it. Every person I know who did that regretted it.
bobbbieg
Original Author
9 years ago
That's interesting dahoov2, in my research I've found it mostly to be the opposite. On these forum I've found a handful of posts from people that regret it (though plenty who also loved their's), but not enough information on their floors. For example one posted issues with fading, with them showing what the floor looked like under a rug and without knowing if they sealed it, and where the house is (I'm in WA, not exactly land of the sun), or if it was a stained cork floor and the brand it's hard to make a judgement on their experience.

It's a gamble, but it seems like people who do their research, stress test the sample and understand corks strengths and weaknesses are very satisfied with their floors. While there are plenty of commercial applications of cork floors, even if my floors show some wear and tear, at the end of the day, we're a pretty informal house and worse case scenario if I have to replace them, it won't break the bank.

Thanks for the post, as a long time lurker I always enjoyed when people pointed out different ideas, experiences and opinions and while you might not be able to save me from myself, maybe a lucky reader will take your warning and save themselves the headache!