Hey friends! Hope you had a great week! I’m back today with the scoop on the herringbone marble tile floor I recently installed in our coastal bathroom remodel.
When I took on our bathroom for the One Room Challenge, it had 15-20 year old wood-look linoleum on the floor – the same flooring that runs through our kitchen and abuts real hardwoods in the adjacent dining room and family room. The Big Plan is to replace the kitchen floor with hardwood eventually, but for the bathroom I had my heart set on marble ever since I remodeled the fireplace.
Marble is such a classic material, and also the colors – white, oyster, gray – are perfect for our house. Ask me again in 10 years, but I really feel like the design of a room could be completely changed up without having to rip out marble tile – it’s neutral and has that timeless, old-school quality.
Are you a marble fan too?
If so, I’m excited to pass on this little tip I learned to work pricey marble into the ollllld budget.
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I did tons of research online and in stores looking for a white marble tile that I absolutely LOVED the color of, and played around with all sorts of patterns. I considered using small or medium hexagons, small subway tile like I used on the surround or the small herringbone mosaics on the hearth, basketweave, or some other pattern – there are so many beautiful marble tiles on the market – but I felt like the small mosaic tiles would be kind of busy with the pattern and texture of the oyster shell mirror.
With the mirror in mind I decided a larger scale floor pattern was the way to go (with the bonus of less grouting!). When I was poking around in the flooring aisle, I couldn’t get over that these 12″ marble tiles are only $3.99 a square foot, substantially less than most other marble tiles, and I remembered this fantastic idea from Elsie at A Beautiful Mess.
Elsie had her tile installer cut 12×12 tiles into thirds (4×12) and the outcome is SO gorgeous. Genius!
I opted to just cut my tiles in half for a chunkier herringbone pattern (and less labor!)
Once again I rented wet saw and now I’m lamenting the fact that I didn’t buy a wet saw three tile projects ago – the saw rental of 4 hours goes by in the blink of an eye and I ended up keeping the saw for 2 days. Lets just say I could have bought two wet saws for what I have paid in rentals.
Some of the tiles had more grey to them, so I dry-fitted them to mix up the colors a bit and figure out the triangular cuts…..
…before installing them, using 1/16″ spacers so the grout lines would be minimal.
After a quick Instagram poll – white grout or gray grout?? – I went with gray and love it! Thank you to everyone who weighed in on that decision!
What do you think about the large scale herringbone pattern?
Figuring out how to lay these 6″x12″ tiles on the diagonal takes a little extra thought, but once you measure, mark, and install the first row you’re good to go. It would be WAY easier to lay the tiles square with the walls and not have to make all those triangular cuts around the perimeter, but I loved the idea of repeating the fireplace’s herringbone pattern on a larger scale.
If you love the herringbone pattern but don’t want to mess around with all those cuts, consider the mosaic herringbone I used on the hearth – they come on mesh sheets that you can easily lay by the square foot.
This is the small herringbone tile I used for the hearth.
Check out the rest coastal bathroom reveal here…..
If you have any questions about this tile installation, give me a holler!
Wishing you a fun summer weekend!
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Other posts from this bathroom remodel you might be interested in:
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