On 9 Aug 2006 12:25:17 -0700, "
wrote:

Starting to tile our bathroom next week and don't know a great deal
about tiles. Our thoughts are to tile the majority with an inexpensive
6x6 white tile and get a more expensive border to add a bit of
interest.

Looking at the various standard 6x6 white tiles prices seem to vary
wildly. Box off 44 from B&Q £3.48, same tile from Focus £9.99 for 18!

What's going on here? Are the B&Q tiles that bad or the Focus tiles so
much better? I'd rather pay out for the Focus ones if the B&Q ones are
all going to shatter as soon as I get them out of the box or be covered
in imperfections.

Any guidance gratefully received.


I suggest you try your local tile shop first (www.yell.co.uk or be
boring and use yellow pages). When we tiled our bathroom we went to
their bargain basement and bought a job lot of (very nice) Italian end
of range tiles and did the whole bathroom (floor to ceiling) for less
than £50. We got two colours of the same tile (to distinguish the
shower area), one colour (a mid blue) was about 30% of the original
price and the other, main, colour (very pale blue)just 10% of the
original price! The tiles we chose are approx 10"x8" - the bigger the
tile the less grout to discolour...

To be fair, we did need to allow around 10% extra tiles to allow for
the odd chipped one that we couldn't cut down for a fiddly bit but we
ended up with quite a few spare.

If you can avoid it - don't use plain white shed tiles or you will
make your bathrooom look like a public lavatory.

It makes a real difference to get nice, quality tiles. Most big tile
shops are desperate to clear out old stock to bring in the new stuff.
Find a tile you like and haggle


--
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?