Am I mad not to get a tiled bathroom?

[CoolKitkat]

It seems that most people prefer tiles on the walls and floor, but I find them cold and hard to keep clean. Am thinking of shower panels and waterproof paint on the walls, and vinyl on the floor as it's softer and easy to clean.

Not planning on moving for at least 10 years (so not too worried about selling on just yet / resale value) but I'm wondering if I'm missing something, as everyone I speak to about this (including bathroom fitters), looks at me like I'm crazy. Am I?

We have vinyl on the bathroom floor. Agree floor tiles feel cold plus a total ball ache to remove in the event of a leak or needing to get to under the floor.

I hate tiles. I much prefer waterproof panels. So much easier to look after and they look good for longer. No nasty grout discolouring or going mouldy.

In my previous house the entire bathroom was panels including the ceiling! Vinyl on the floor. I moved and that bathroom is the only thing I miss. Now I have tiles again. Itching to change it to panels again!

I think panels look cheap, to be honest, and never really look or feel clean. But if you like it, then go for it. It’s your bathroom.

Non slip vinyl is a bitch to keep clean. Normal vinyl fine or have the best is Cork although not to everyone's taste.
I have no tiles just wall and have never had a problem.

I'm with you on the floor tiles. We have LVL on our bathroom floors and live it - easy to clean, warm to the touch and looks good.

But I don't agree on the waterproof wall panels. I have never seen it installed without it looking a bit cheap and nasty. Sorry.

We looked at panels but the samples were just so awful. We had to pick at the height of lockdown though so didn't see anything in real life.

We have tiles just in the shower and on the floor. We have quite a warm grey colour and underfloor heating so it's not cold in there for sure.

Our old bathroom was waterproof paint; panels and vinyl. I thought it was fine until we replaced it with tiles. It is a million times better. Much easier to clean; colours stay the same density, etc. I wish I'd opted for tiles long ago.

Get large format tiles in the shower. Not lots of little ones. Panels - just no.

I have panels and love them.

Get microcement on the walls - it looks amazing and is so easy to keep clean

Vinyl floor or that interlocking stuff. Definitely tiled walls. I couldn't put my finger on what is was about the panels, but then I realised they remind me of caravans. Tiles on the wall make the bathroom look expensive.

In our old house we had vinyl flooring, aqua panelled shower and waterproof paint. In our new house the bathroom is fully tiled (was like this when we move in). Looks great but it's FREEZING and the place is like a steam room after a shower, the walls and floor are soaking!

I wouldn't recommend full tiling.

I would microcement the walls. It’s expensive though.

MIL has vinyl on the floor of their main bathroom. It's been down the ten years I've been visiting and still looks decent. Just be choosy about the quality. I would definitely use it over tiles if I was doing a family bathroom.

Couldn't disagree more about the panels. They look cheap and a bit of a bodge, like someone didn't want to pay a tiler. A mate of mine is a surveyor and he always says panels sound alarm bells rings for him because it's often the sign of a project that's been done on the cheap or an attempt to hide an underlying issue like damp or movement.

Limit the tiling to large tiles in the shower (less grout lines) and a run about the top of the bath.

I’d always have tiles personally, anything else can look cheap. Put in underfloor heating and a big radiator if poss.. it’s never cold.

We haven’t got any tiles at all in our bathroom. The walls are painted and the flooring’s vinyl. It works for us.

We’ve just had a new bathroom fitted in the house we’ve just bought (finished yesterday!).

We’d had the walls half-tiled (I’m going to paint the untiled bit) and Karndean on the floor. It looks lovely!

We have panels in all of our bathrooms, no tiles st all.
I really like them and it is so much cheaper and easier than tiling. Very easy to clean too,

We have tiles on the floor in one bathroom which are beautiful but cold (thankfully the bathroom is generally cozy) and vinyl in another which is warmer but ugly and I plan to replace with cork at some point. The third bathroom has carpet (not envy), I plan to tank that room so thinking about underfloor heating and tiles which my Mum has which is great.

We have giant tiles, they come as 1.5m x 3m and they are cut to fit.

I hate tiles for floors unless you’ve got good underfloor heating and are willing to run it all the time. Also please- tile merchants of the world- stop selling people tiles for bathroom floors that are slippery when dry and downright lethal when wet. Our family bathroom is utterly horrific for grip. I have had to resort to 3 MASSIVE rubber backed bath mats in order to not require a nightly trip to A&E with the kids. I have no idea who sold them those tiles for the floor as it was in when we moved, but Jesus they are dangerous.

Thanks all, lots to think about! Still no closer to reaching a decision

It’s cost really isn’t it! What can you afford. The caravan look or swish hotel look you see in magazines.

I hate tiles. Hate them with a firey loathing. I extra hate the bastarding bumpy tiles the builder put in here (we came in too late in the process to choose our own [new build]).

When we redid our bathroom in our old house we put in shower panels. They looked beautiful, not at all cheap, and were so easy to clean. I'm getting rid of the tiles we have as soon as we have to redo the bathrooms here.

We have panels and vinyl. They look great. Pretty sure they were more expensive than tiling would have been.