Small bathroom - fully tiled or half tiled?

[Sum2021]

Just that really. A small bathroom with tub, sink with vanity and toilet, a bit of floorspace (not much).

Ive always thought fully tiled in a small bathroom looks too enclosed. I like the half tiled look of new builds - i want to tile the wall with the batbtub and sink and half tile the remaining walls.

DH says it looks cheap if not fully tiled.

Opinions please. TIA

Now that they the bathroom tiles are up I am thinking we could have gone for fully tiled. They ade large marble tiles so dont think would look overpowering. Ill.post a pic when painted and I'm thinking of putting some art up instead.

Definitely fully tiled. We had a small bathroom in the loft in our old house and only had it partially tiled. It never felt properly finished.

I’d go fully - you get a lot of steam in a small bathroom.

I'm not sure tbh lol. Both can look good. Depends if ud have to plaster walls etc.

My old house we fully tiled it in white with a marble and mosaic border with granite floor tiles. Loved it.

New house the bathroom was completed just a few months before we bought the house and is only tiled around bath and shower and behind sink. It still looks nice though.

I'd probably just replace like for like in new house to save money. Think it's a bit more modern these days to just tile around bath and sink area.

I guess it also depends how ventilated it is. We don’t have a window and the walls can get pretty steamy.

I've always disliked fully tiled bathrooms. I'm just renovating ours and 1 bathroom (for DC) has tiles around the bath and shower and then floor, with a small tiled backsplash over their vanity.

My bathroom and the guest bathroom are only tiled on the floors and inside showers. I'm half panelling the rest of the room (including behind and around my boat bath). I'm not very splashy, so fine with not tiling the walls around bath

We used a panel around the shower and just plastered and painted the rest leaving it untitled. B&Q special though so not particularly fancy looking. Also added a splash back.

Stylish bathroom @Soontobe60! I had not thought about using panelling, and the floor tiles are lovely.

I've fully tiled all of ours - even small j&j showe room - this one is actually my favourite in a light large format tile

Same as piglet John says.

I’ve got glass to the ceiling in the bath/shower area and all the wall behind the vanity/basin unit and the rest painted.

From experience, fully-tiled is an expensive PITA if you want to change it at some point! I’d never do it again.

We have small bathrooms and fully tiled them. The house is modern and very well insulated, which means no matter how good an extractor fan is or how wide a window is open, the steam builds up almost immediately and looks terrible on painted surfaces. We went with very high end tile with natural looking finishes so the rooms actually feel quite cosy. I do love the look of half tiled or half panelled bathrooms, too, but I'm saving them for our next house with bigger bathrooms.

Such a fabulous transformation @Soontobe60!

@Soontobe60 your "after" picture is lovely, what a gorgeous makeover!

Personally I'm pro half tiles with full tiling around shower areas or wherever is needed for splashes. I dislike a lot of the fully tiled bathrooms around at the moment (house hunting at the moment so plenty of opportunity to work out what I do and don't like - good grief there are some ugly bathrooms out there!).

Also agree with PigletJohn - do not tile over cisterns etc. You are probably making problems for yourself in the future

We did half in our old house. use f&b strong white modern emulsion paint above. liked that we or new owners had option to change it up with a lick of paint.

We're ripping out our old fully tiled 80's style bathroom.
It'll have tiles up to the ceiling around the three sides of the tub and a tile splashback behind the basin, and a tile floor, the rest will be painted.

Has anyone gone for a darker colour above the tiles? I fancy navy paint and large white tiles...