UPDATED: Foyer Tile - need NORMAL ideas

[lb2006]

we are only lacking foyer tile for our house to be finished with flooring.  I've searched houzz for ideas and while I love the photos and examples, they usually are mansions or way too fancy for a 'normal' person's home.  We thought about a rug pattern, but i can't find a metallic tile for the floor to use for the rug border.  

Now i'm thinking marble with a design, but my creativity is shot. 


Does anyone have suggestions of what they used or like?  The foyer is almost 12' x 8.5'

Open floorplan
foyer is open to upstairs/stairwell & looks into the family room, dining and sitting area, and kitchen. We have wood in the family/dining area and tile in the kitchen.  

my blog hasn't been updated in FOREVER, but you can see the flooring & foyer on the first page:

onelastproject.blogspot.com/


Any ideas are most helpful.  After 18 months of decision making and renovating, i'm all out of ideas

UPDATE: We are currently having a honed marble in 3 sizes installed, plank pattern. Initially we wanted herringbone pattern but the idiot sales rep told us incorrectly at the tile shop.  Until we laid it out last night, we didn't realize we COULDN'T have herringbone.  We have expressed our disappointment to them.  Progress, crappy iphone pic that i can't turn correctly.  If you click to enlarge, it rotates it correctly.:

Attachment Deleted

[ssmjlm]

Slate in some sort of pattern? I think it would work well with your wood floors.

[emoflamingo]

My so not fancy house just has some regular square tile in a square pattern. Boring!

This one is pretty:



(pinterest link here)

[munkii]

The boring suggestion: travertine (avoiding the yellow/brown shades) in various formats, staggered. 



If you want to go marble but want to avoid stuffy, maybe a basketweave pattern would be a good option.



tilebar.com/basket-weave-wooden-beige-with-athens-gray-dot-marble-tile.html

tilebar.com/filigree-maize-marble-tile.html

My favorite would be to pick a pattern and go with Cuban cement tile. There are a lot of options varying from formal to less formal and very traditional to contemporary.

www.google.com/search?q=cuban+cement+tile+foyer&rlz=1C1LENN_enUS450&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=-LmqVPrAM4OeyQTt6oGgCw&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

www.cementtileshop.com/

www.granadatile.com/instock.php

[Susie]

LOL at the "NORMAL" qualifier.  I know what you mean.

We haven't done it yet, but I think we're eventually going to do the kitchen & foyer in the same tile as the half bath.  It's porcelain.  It'll either happen when we reno the kitchen, or when the current laminate deteriorates too much to keep.  We might stick with the 13x13s, or we might go up to 20x20, or some kind of staggered pattern.  The same tile is available in a few sizes.



They are 13x13.

I am sure there are plenty of more glam options, but I just don't live in the right house for that.  This picture is like a million updates ago (promise, we don't have green carpet anymore), but this is the foyer it'll go in:
 

The squares in the existing laminate are 6x6 I think.  I definitely would not go any smaller, and intend to go bigger than that.  I don't want lots of grout to clean in such a high traffic area.

[lb2006]

thanks for the ideas!!! I'm going to make a priority list and share with my husband. He'll just look at $$$, but it's a small-ish area, so i think we'll be okay.

[downtoearth]

You could do hexagon tile and then get a border by popping out some of one color and making a border with a contrasting color.



Or you could do a hexagon tile with a simple rectangular border if you wanted.



Or you could do inexpensive porcelain tile with a herringbone pattern

[mrs.jacinthe]

What about doing a herringbone pattern with a more basic tile?

[ssmjlm]

Honey and Fitz had a blog post on my feedly about this. honeyandfitz.com/2015/01/05/creative-tile-flooring-patterns/

[TBM]

I am kind of our of ideas too, but I highly recommend getting tile that is not slippery. I love marble, but I have slipped on that stuff more times than I care to mention. We have tile by the back hall/door and in the kitchen that has a no-slip finish, and it really is amazing.

[lb2006]

I like the herringbone idea too.

I know marble is slick and worry about that - but feel i am getting desperate with ideas. Not the best way to look at this.

[Ramz-ee]

We just used 12x12 tiles in our old kitchen/eat-in area and put them at an angle. I still love that floor.





Also, I wanted a little detail in our new bathroom. We used 12x24 tiles (non slippery) and added a strip of accent tile. Maybe too much for what you want, but by doing something simple like that, you can create a normal look.

[nomad100]

I can't find a pic but our foyer is similar in size. We did 1 row of 12x12 tiles around the edge of the room then did a border (3 inch I think) and then filled in the rest with 6x6 on the diagonal in the center all in slate.

[lb2006]

We ordered a honed marble that is three different sizes. It will be a border with a herringbone pattern center!

It is neutral and really lovely - so thank you for all of the wonderful ideas! I will post a pic once delivered and installed

[ktzmoh]

Jan 11, 2015 22:34:19 GMT -5 lb2006 said:

We ordered a honed marble that is three different sizes. It will be a border with a herringbone pattern center!

It is neutral and really lovely - so thank you for all of the wonderful ideas! I will post a pic once delivered and installed

That's going to look gorgeous!

[lb2006]

Updated @ top with progress pic

[TBM]

That is beautiful. Sorry about the problem with the herrigbone, but I love the new pattern.

[lb2006]

thanks, TBM, it's just tough when you have your heart set on another and the "expert" said it could be done.  Last time we're believing that

it's going to turn out nicely, i think

[TBM]

Feb 5, 2015 12:44:43 GMT -5 lb2006 said:

thanks, TBM, it's just tough when you have your heart set on another and the "expert" said it could be done.  Last time we're believing that

it's going to turn out nicely, i think

I have run into a lot of that disappointment of having my heart set on one thing and it not working out the way that I planned in this house.  This house seems to have ideas of its own...and of course the county and various manufacturers of things have their own ideas too.

Time helps to get past the disappointment, but honestly....once I got past the disappointment and looked for a solution or a way to make the changes work, things actually turned out even better than my original plans. 

[lb2006]

Feb 5, 2015 13:46:57 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

Feb 5, 2015 12:56:31 GMT -5 TBM said:

I have run into a lot of that disappointment of having my heart set on one thing and it not working out the way that I planned in this house.  This house seems to have ideas of its own...and of course the county and various manufacturers of things have their own ideas too.

Time helps to get past the disappointment, but honestly....once I got past the disappointment and looked for a solution or a way to make the changes work, things actually turned out even better than my original plans. 

This has happened to us many times, too.

But I would probably play up the disappointment at this point and try to get some $$$ back on those tiles. Have you contacted the tile shop?

yes - basically they said "sorry" and gave us a discount on additional grout/sealer+cleaner.  I told them to please express my disappointment to the rep who sold us on the idea that didn't exist.   at $12 a sq ft 

[Ramz-ee]

I really like it!

[emoflamingo]

Feb 5, 2015 12:44:43 GMT -5 lb2006 said:

thanks, TBM, it's just tough when you have your heart set on another and the "expert" said it could be done.  Last time we're believing that

it's going to turn out nicely, i think

My FIL says an "expert" is a has been under pressure haha.

I like it, it'll look fantastic.