It's that time of year again when you can start to feel the nip of cold in the air and getting out of the shower in the morning is an increasingly chilly experience.
When you step onto that bathroom floor with bare feet - whether it's first thing in the morning or the middle of the night, you do not want to come back with a footcicle. Icy cold bathroom floors are a known problem across the world, anywhere that gets cold for even a small part of the year. That chilly tile can even discourage you from starting your day, dreading that first frigid step.
If you're planning a bathroom remodel, now is a great time to solve that cold floor problem as well by thinking ahead. There are several bathroom floor options that are much warmer or at least more cold-resistant than traditional ceramic tile flooring. Let's dive into your available design solutions to a cold bathroom floor.
Before you tear out your tile, decorate with bathmats. If you have just one bathmat by the shower, expand. Place one by the sink and another by the toilet.
When the floor is cold in the morning, you can play an ironic game of The Floor is Lava and step from mat to mat. You can even lay down a larger foam mat for the whole floor, at least until you're ready for your remodel.
The single best (and most expensive) solution is a heated floor. Radiant heated floors are made up of a network of tubes that runs just below your tile. The tubes are then pumped with a flow of heated liquid, which then gently warms the tile floor for the entire extent of your bathroom.
When running (and you can set it on a timer), your heated floor will be toasty warm on your bare toes without worrying about slippers, rugs, or footcicles.
One beautifully modern option for a warm bathroom floor is laminate board, also known as engineered wood flooring. While it's true that real wood boards would swell and warp in the moist bathroom, engineered boards are actually layered wood and laminate, making them much more moisture-durable, washable, scratch-resistant, and still warm like natural wood under your feet.
Laminate board flooring in your bathroom looks gorgeous like natural wood and it can't get nearly as cold as tile or stone floor even in the dead of winter.
If you're in a hurry or on a budget, cork and vinyl flooring are an excellent cold-resistant combination on the affordable side of the spectrum. Luxury vinyl can be chosen to look like ceramic tile, wood flooring, mosaic, or something unique that could only be printed on a sheet of cushiony plastic.
For the ideal cold resistance, back your vinyl floor with a layer of insulating cork. Cork floors are a traditional way to ward off the cold, but cork is also absorbent and best sealed when used in bathroom design. Laminate over cork can create a warm, elegant bathroom floor on a respectable budget and with fast installation.
If you want a natural material in your bathroom but don't want freezing stone tile, try bamboo floorboards. Bamboo is known to survive well in moist conditions, unlike other woods, and creates a beautiful rich golden palette where it is installed as boards. A bamboo floor will not only stay warm in the winter, but also match other bamboo features like a bamboo shower bench, and bathroom shelving.
If you're tired of freezing cold bathroom floors in the winter, you have options. With a bathroom renovation in the plans, you can take up your old floor (even save and reuse the tiles) and install a new floor that will keep your toes from freezing when you shuffle in on a cold winter morning.
Ready to warm up your bathroom floor with a useful and stylish bathroom redesign? So are we. Contact us today to get started on your bathroom remodel.