After walls and ceilings, floors represent the largest surface area in any room. New flooring can cost a substantial investment in money as well as time and effort, so it is important to get it right the first time.

What the floor looks like will without doubt set the tone for the rest of the decorative theme. Its basic character, colour, pattern or texture will all play a part in the decision making. Officially, floors may be more a part of the backdrop, but fundamentally they have the potential to create a massive impact on the way we live.

While it is often easy to stand back and admire the surrounding furnishings, what goes on underfoot often eludes our attention. Yet the perfect floor can do more for a bathroom than almost any other facet of decoration or furnishing. If you take the time and trouble to get the right flooring in your bathroom, the rest will just fall into place.

Hard Floors

Granite
Granite is a coarse-grained rock comprising of feldspa, quartz and mica which gives it a gorgeous crystalline appearance. It is especially hard, highly resistant to wear and chemicals, and impervious to water, being perfect for the bathroom.

However, choose cautiously as polished varieties can prove undesirably slippery. Rougher textures are better for flooring; even more sensible are paving stones which can be laid like brick. Granite is one of the most expensive types of stone on the market, but tiles come at a fraction of the cost and weight. Tiles as thin as 7mm can be used on bathroom floors.

Limestone
Limestone is much softer rock than granite. There are shades from warm natural shades to dappled blue, grey and green to near black varieties.

Limestone is cool and stylish. Large flags stones work in classic or contemporary environments, but lack the more obvious stylish overtones of marble. It is worth shopping around as some limestone’s wear better than others. All types are porous but may be treated to help prevent staining. Limestone can be affected by acid chemicals and the harder types can be slippery when wet.

Marble
Marble is the embodiment of luxury. For centuries this cool, almost transparent stone, with its simple patterning, rich veining, and often bright and glowing colours, has featured in the most elegant, scrumptiously decorated rooms.

If you want to make a statement then marble is the material to use. It works well in the classic and elegant contrast of black and white tiling. Marble is pretty hard-wearing, although sometimes colours and patterns can become dulled by wear and tear of traffic in and out of rooms. Some marble can be slippery; it depends on the surface texture. For flooring, it is worthwhile to go for a honed finish which obviously offers a better grip than high polish.

Slate
Slate, is a metamorphic rock and is quarried in mountain regions all over the world. It comes in a range of delightfully striking colours of dark green, blue, blue-grey, red, purple and black. It tends to have a glossy, wet look due to the high proportion of mica crystals layered through the stone. Slate although not cheap, is more reasonably priced than either granite or marble and has other noticeably functional advantages. Unlike marble or limestone, most types of slate are waterproof, which makes it superb for indoor areas which are possible to get wet. It is also very hard wearing, good with chemicals and needs little in the way of after-care.

Ceramic Tiles
Ceramic tiles are unique in the fact that the way they are made enables them all to be very strong and durable, as well as regular in dimension and colouring. They are made with refined clay, which is ground, pressed into moulds under great pressure before being fired at very high temperatures.

Hard and very wear-resistant, ceramic tiles are impervious to water and most stains. In general, ceramic tiles are slightly slippery, but non-slip varieties are available with ribbed, grooved or studded textures giving a better grip underfoot.

The most exciting thing about ceramics is the surprising amount of colours, shapes, patterns and textures. The usual rustic earthy shades are complemented by a wide range of vivid colours in solid or shaded styles, or tones of white, black and grey.