bathroom flooring - what would you advise, and what colour?

[happynappies]

We've moved in to a new house which has a family bathroom, a shower room, and a downstairs toilet - all with carpet. We want to replace this as soon as possible, but really don't know what to look for. We've got 4 small dcs under the age of 6, so with bath time/potty training etc carpet definitely isn't practical. Would vinyl flooring be a good bet? I'm thinking that a tiled floor would be cold/hard if dcs fell over, slippery etc and I'm imagining underfloor heating in the upstairs bathrooms would be expensive/excessive? The bathrooms upstairs have been fairly recently decorated, with white suites and 'stone' coloured tiles/travertine 'effect' tiles... so whatever type of flooring we opt for, I'm not sure what colour to have. Would a light colour sort of 'clash' with the existing tiles? Would it be better to go for a contrast? Arrrgh so many questions. If anyone has any answers I'm all ears!

My niece has an amazing floor lino, that looks like thick tiles, and is warm, comfy as a carpet ,non-slip and easy clean. Don't know what is is called though.

amck5700
Your bathroom looks lovely can I ask what make/model the loo and bath are please (the basin is nice too but I am going for inset one). Any problems with the shower screen not containing spray enough?

Sorry for the hijack happynappies, it sounds as though you are getting great advice. Good luck with it.

Hi nemno - all the bath fittings were bought from Next - plumber was pleased with the quality. Can't remember the exact models as we ordered for the en-suit and downstars loo at the same time and sort of mixed and matched. we needed a cabinet style sink because of the awkward way the pipes had been put in, it would have been a real faff to get a normal sink put in. I ended up buying a bathroom suite, a shower suit and an extra toilet and small cabinet for the downstairs loo as well as the cabinet for the bathroom so had an extra sink to return. It worked out cheaper doing it that way than ordering the bits individually. I can try to look back my Next account and see if I can find the names of the suits though.

Water doesn't splash out the shower - we had a pump fitted so the showers are really strong - you sometimes get a bit of fine spray but nothing that gets the floor wet - it depends on who is using it. We mainly use the shower in the en-suit so it really just guests and the kids - though they will come through and use ours before we do as then they don't have to wipe the other one down......that wasn't the plan!

I found Next really good, they delivered everything in one batch and were no problem taking back returns and the quality was great and actually not any more expensive than sourcing the stuff individually by the time you added delivery costs.

Another vote for real lino, i.e. Marmoleum. I got it because Pannacotta told me to, and she was right.

had a quick look - the invoice doesn't say, but looking at the website, we ordered the Lavender bath suite - the sink and loo from that went in the en-suite i think and then we ordered the Bluebell Shower suite and the toilet from that went in the bathroom with the cabinet sink :) You can order them individually - the only comment i would make is that the bluebell toilet, whilst it looks lovely, doesn't have a very strong flush (very small tank) so if it's your only toilet you may want to think again. I have had to flush ours with a bucket a couple of times when the kids have blocked it!

Thank you so much for all that info amck, I would never have thought to look at Next.

Whatever you lay it is best if you take up the loo and lay the tiles/Lino right under the loo so there is nowhere for pee to accumulate under the loo. IYSWIM

Well I got some lovely vinyl from the Colour Flooring Company. We got their bright orange for our upstairs bathroom and it just looks brilliant. It comes in sheets not planks so it looks really classy. We’ve got wonky floors too so our fitter just put down a layer of ply first. I was so pleased I got it for my kitchen too (I went for their China Blue which is exactly like a Farrow & Ball colour). It’s dead easy to clean and it works with under floor heating.