Choosing porcelain tiles
Porcelain tiles are still one of the most popular choices for bathrooms and kitchens and there are a vast range available, but are they a good choice for your bathroom or kitchen?
Tiles certainly have many advantages. First of all they’re cheap and very easy to put into place. This means that the initial cost of renovating your bathroom or kitchen walls will be cheap and that you’ll also be able to replace tiles individually should one get damaged. If you have wallpaper in a room and that gets scratched, then you’ll have to do at least a whole new drop, whereas something like marble will be expensive to replace. With a porcelain tile however you can quickly and easily cement the new one on to replace a damaged one – make sure when you buy the tiles that you buy lots of spares for this reason as if they’ve ceased production of your tiles you’ll be stuck with a big square gap in your pattern.
Another great thing about tiles is that they’re so popular and this means that there are a massive wealth of different styles and patterns available. You can go with simple plain white for a very contemporary minimalist look, gaggles of swans dotted around if you have young children using the bathroom, a different pattern or even paint your own designs onto the porcelain (which is easy enough to do). You can even make patterns out of the tiles themselves by arranging different colours in a certain order – for example making diamonds out of blue tiles on white. This makes them almost like a giant mosaic and there’s no limit to how creative you can get with that. More basically you can just create borders and skirting boards, or can outline your utilities. You don’t even need to have the same pattern on every tile – but can instead have mostly white with random images dotted around the room. Again this is something you could only achieve with porcelain tiles.
Another advantage of porcelain tiles is that they’re easy to clean. As the surface is flat and shiny there’s no way that mess can get caught in nooks and crannies or get soaked up into the tiles (which also means they will be less likely to mould than say paint or carpet). In a kitchen or a bathroom a lot of liquids are used and regularly spilled which on a carpet or wallpaper would cause serious damage – fortunately with porcelain tiles it can simply and easily be wiped off with a jay cloth meaning the room will generally appear much cleaner than it would with other kinds of flooring.
The down sides of porcelain tiles are that they’re quite brittle and can easily be broken or chipped. In comparison to other types of walls or flooring you are likely to find you quite regularly knock of corners or crack individual tiles. Again though this is negated somewhat by the fact that the tiles are quick and easy to replace so that the damage can quickly and easily be fixed.
Another downside is that porcelain tiles are often associated with more old fashioned bathrooms and garish flower patterns. This really need not be the case however and there are a whole host of modern and stylish tiles you can buy. Blacks and silvers currently are great for giving your room a sleeker look. Alternatively stone colours can create a similar effect to having marble or granite – particularly when used with larger tiles. You can even have the tiles at another angle so that you have diamonds rather than squares on your walls which create a modern look.
A great way to renovate your bathroom is with porcelain tiles. They can add a fresh look and if you can find a wholesale porcelain tile supplier, they will be even cheaper.
