Flooring help - Need help deciding what type of floor for 1st floor.

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

Hi, We're finally starting to work on our house after being in it for a year. We would like to start with change the flooring first. My first floor which consists of a kitchen/dining, half-bath, living room and entry. I know for sure that I want wood in the stairs and the second floor. For the first floor I would like cohesive flooring since the space is not too big. Currently we have travertine tiles in the entry, half-bath & kitchen/dining and carpet in the living room and formal dining room (which we don't plan to use as second dining room because we have decent space in our kitchen dining space.) I've been thinking to put all large format (24x24) tiles but can't make up my mind. We have active dogs who go in/out to the backyard all day and have to 2 access doors to the backyard (living room and kitchen) so tile seems like a good choice as far as cleaning. We recently went to India and bali and saw that the houses had tile/stone flooring throughout and liked a lot in those spaces as it's the standard however I keep questioning wether it's a good choice because it's not so standard here in bay area and will it end up looking like a patio. The second dilemma is the type/color of tiles. We have white walls (which we like) and grey sofa already and I have been looking at grey tiles, I don't want it to end up looking/feeling too cold. Also with the all the grey will I have to change my countertop which is warm. We plan to paint our kitchen cabinets as well but the color of the floor will be the deciding factor in choosing the color for the cabinets.

So far I've looked into 2 tiles. Both are porcelain & 24x24

Ivy hill tiles - Essential cement silver gray. **Looks decent. Pretty basic.
Emser tiles - Terazio Bianco. ** Looks high end but glossy finish, questing slipping hazard.

** Formal dining room that we don't plan to use as a dinning area. We Plan to have a temple/shrine in the right corner and maybe a low chair in the left corner and move to lighting to the left corner above the chair.

Featured Answer

SJ McCarthy

5 years ago

You have: WARM travertine tile on the first floor. You have DARK warm wood cabinets. You have WARM countertops.

The LAST thing you want sitting next to that BEAUTIFUL WARM coloured stone is gray. No gray. Nothing in your home says "I need gray to make it perfect". Nothing.

Your furniture will change. Your area rugs will change. Your wall colours will change. They will all change inside of 15 years. But your PERMANENT stone or tile floors will STAY.

If you must use a tile next to stone, I suggest working in the same tones. You can go darker or you can go lighter but stay inside the SAME TONES as the travertine.

If you REALLY MUST HAVE GRAY - then rip out the travertine and start again. Gray and peach stone/tile do not like to play nicely together. It screams out, "I didn't want to pay to do it properly."

I would recommend finding MORE travertine in a different sized tile and add it in at an angle (diagonal install). You can find a stone that is either a little darker or a little lighter. You can then add a decorative boarder to the rooms where you are installing it so that it looks like you did it on purpose. This is a great way to add more of the high-end stone to a space that already has high-end stone.

But please do not add gray in with peach. They just don't like each other. Flooring snobs, like myself can see it right away. We KNOW when something has been done piece meal. We also know when someone did the piece meal NICELY vs. someone who did it without a thought to the overall look of the floor.

Compliment the stone you are keeping. Let your area rugs turn the space gray. That trend is quickly dying. It makes sense to throw out a rug in 3 years. It doesn't make sense to rip out a tile floor in 3 years.

Sort by:Oldest