How do you decide on tile shape/size?

[Deleted]

Right now my front foyer and kitchen have the same vinyl flooring, as does the laundry room and powder room, while my dining room and living room are carpeted. At some point in time we will be redoing all of the floors on the main floor, probably in 3-5 years, but the living/dining may be done sooner depending on how long it takes our dogs to ruin the carpet LOL. Our second floor and stairs are hardwood. How do you decide what flooring to use where? I mean, I'm pretty set on hardwood for the living and dining rooms, and then tile for the kitchen, but what about the foyer, laundry room, and powder room? The kitchen/living/dining/foyer are all on the same level and on subfloor, but the laundry room/powder room are actually a step down and on a concrete slab.

We are getting ready to move our laundry room to the basement. Once we do that, we'll actually be moving the wall between the powder room and current laundry area to make the powder room a bit bigger (it is currently teeny tiny, we'll be bumping out about a foot) and the laundry room will be converted to a pantry with floor to ceiling cabinets. I'm trying to decide what flooring to use in the in the new powder room/ pantry area. Should it match the kitchen? I'm thinking yes, but wasn't sure. I'm leaning towards a white 12x12 tile if that matters, something like this, nothing fancy: www.homedepot.com/p/ELIANE-Delray-White-12-in-x-12-in-Ceramic-Floor-and-Wall-Tile-16-15-sq-ft-case-8026981/206189607 But might also consider a similar tile in a 6x12 laid on an angle.

Also, would you match the foyer to the kitchen or to the living room/dining room area?

We will likely be remodeling the kitchen at the same time we re-do all of the floors, but that won't be for probably another 3-5 years, so do I do the laundry/pantry area whatever I want for now with plans to redo it when the kitchen remodel is done, or do the floor now and pick a floor that will also be used for the kitchen in the future? If it's the latter, would you buy all of the tile now so as to not risk it being discontinued before the remodel is done in the future? 

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time figuring out what to do here.

Here's a very non-scale picture of the layout if that helps you any.

[lilac05]

If you live in an area with lots of rain/snow, I’d do tile in the foyer. We had hardwood in the last house and tile in this one, and I wouldn’t go back to wood. I like the look of wood better than the tile we have, but it’s so nice to not have to worry about shoes, salt, water, footprints, etc. on the tile.

We have 24” tile with a custom tile mosaic (that I dislike, but it’s $$$$$ to change), but it’s a good sized space.

If you do tile in the kitchen, make sure you get the anti-fatigue rugs. They really do make a difference!

[namasteak]

I would do:
Foyer/living/dining hardwoods
Kitchen/pantry/powder room tile (buy all at the same time so it matches)

[lolalolalola]

I would do all hardwood, except for tile in the laundry and powder room. 

If you are set on tile in the kitchen, then I'd also extend it to the foyer. (Really, you could go either way in the foyer with tile or hardwood; hardwood would look better if it matches the stairs perfectly and would look worse if it does not).

I would do a rectangular shaped tile vs a 12 x 12 which is a dated look.

[aprilsails]

Do you use your front door and are you in an area with a serious winter? If so, I would do tile in the foyer, kitchen and laundry, and go with hardwood in the dining room and living room.

For tile we prefer 12x24” tiles, however you have to do the proper subfloor treatment since they are more prone to cracking.

[Deleted]

Thank you for the suggestions.

We use our front door pretty much exclusively, the only exception being the summer time, we use the door in the laundry room to go in the backyard/pool area.

I thought about the larger rectangular tiles (12x24) but the foyer and laundry/pantry areas are pretty small, so I was afraid that that large of a tile would overwhelm the space. What I was actually thinking was doing something less traditional and doing a layout which includes both square and rectangular tiles, but I'm having trouble convincing H that it will be awesome LOL Any thoughts on something like this?

[TBM]

I have a thing about flooring color matching throughout the house/level so that the eye isn't drawn to breaks in color, but I really think that function is more important than using the same surface throughout.

I disliked having white tile at our old house, so I am biased against it, but because you see both the foyer and kitchen when you walk in through your front door, it seems like those floors should match/coordinate. I do prefer tile for a foyer.

[mrsukyankee]

I like that pattern @sameoldstory.

[lolalolalola]

Jan 29, 2019 10:41:46 GMT -5 @sameoldstory said:

I like this pattern a lot.

[OG Jo]

Wood-look tile throughout. That's what we did. I love it.

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2019 13:34:32 GMT -5 OG Jo said:

Wood-look tile throughout. That's what we did. I love it.

I did briefly consider this, but this seems to make more sense to me in warmer areas. Like, my cousins house in Miami the entire first floor is tile. We have a lot of cold months in the northeast and tile throughout just sounds cold brrrrr

[lolalolalola]

Jan 29, 2019 14:24:27 GMT -5 @sameoldstory said:

Jan 29, 2019 13:34:32 GMT -5 OG Jo said:

Wood-look tile throughout. That's what we did. I love it.

I did briefly consider this, but this seems to make more sense to me in warmer areas. Like, my cousins house in Miami the entire first floor is tile. We have a lot of cold months in the northeast and tile throughout just sounds cold brrrrr

Yes I agree- as a Canadian, I have never seen tile throughout an entire floor of a house. It seems common when I visit warm weather places.

I like the wood look tile, but since you'll eventually have real wood, I would not mix those two together.  We have black/dark grey tiles with dark grey grout, in our foyer/powder/laundry and I like the way it looks.  We have hardwood throughout the rest of the main floor.

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2019 20:11:47 GMT -5 turbo said:

Jan 29, 2019 10:41:46 GMT -5 @sameoldstory said:

Thank you for the suggestions.

We use our front door pretty much exclusively, the only exception being the summer time, we use the door in the laundry room to go in the backyard/pool area.

I thought about the larger rectangular tiles (12x24) but the foyer and laundry/pantry areas are pretty small, so I was afraid that that large of a tile would overwhelm the space. What I was actually thinking was doing something less traditional and doing a layout which includes both square and rectangular tiles, but I'm having trouble convincing H that it will be awesome LOL Any thoughts on something like this?

If the spaces are pretty small, will you really be able to get enough of this tile down to do a pattern to the point where it looks good? And are you planning to do the foyer? Because that looks to get kind of narrow, so the pattern would be hard to pull off if you wanted to continue it down the hallway to the kitchen. I might consider just going with a smaller rectangular tile and ensuring that you get a good, consistent repeat throughout.

I’m biased because this is what we did and I obviously love it, but we have hardwoods throughout our main floor with the exception of the laundry, one bath, and the hallway from the garage to the kitchen. There we did a slate tile with gray grout and it looks really nice with the hardwoods (walnut in a darker stain). It transitions at a small set of 3 stairs so you don’t even notice it IMO. I have loved how durable and easy to clean the slate is so I would highly recommend it if that’s a look / style you like.

I just measured, and the pantry/laundry and powder room area is 140" long and 60" wide, so I'm not sure if that pattern would make sense in that space now that I look at it, but the foyer is 104" x 91" at the largest part and 36" at the narrowest,  so I think that it will work in there and definitely the kitchen. After talking it over with H last night, I think we're going to price out doing the pattern with the square and rectangular tiles above in the foyer and kitchen and then for the new pantry/powder room area do either just the rectangular, or the square tiles on an angle. The pantry/laundry/powder room is a step down from the kitchen so I think that we can get away with doing the same tile but a slightly different pattern/layout. We're going to buy a box of each tile to try a couple of different layouts in that area before we fully decide.