apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We have hardwood in our bathroom (a shoe factory converted into lofts) and it looks amazing but it is a bit stressfull. There was a small leak before we moved in so there's some warping but it's minimal and hidden.
While we love the look of it, our longterm plan is to install slate tiles in order to keep the natural feel but stop worrying about every drop of water!

Hello, my name is Art...and I'm an AT junkie and bathroom renovator too.

(crowd) "HI ART!"

but seriously,

Rock and roll with the hardwood.

As long as it is solid wood and finished properly you shouldn't have any problems provided there is not steady leaking from anywhere.

I would also keep an eye out if you have cold water lines exposed because the condensation could cause a steady drip. But other than that I think that your tile border along the tub was a great idea and you have a purty floor.

I totally understand why Jellyknits decided to give it a go in this particular space & I don't blame her one bit for experimenting a little. But normally I would say "hell to the no!" when it comes to a wood floor in a bathroom or any room where water is used. My old landlord put wood floors in the closet where she kept her washing machine. It took just one little leak to ruin those floors. The wood was warped and when you stepped on it, it felt unstable & brittle.

The wood floor probably won't be a problem here because this isn't a heavily used bathroom. Normally, I'd advise against it, for all the reasons previously mentioned.

The wood looks really nice here. A cheat would be to go with Pergo that looks like wood. At least, I THINK it's okay for bathrooms.

I have bamboo flooring in my kitchen and both baths. It's wonderful. Unless you're regularly flooding your bathroom floor, there's no reason why wood or bamboo can't be wonderful.

Rock and roll Art! My parents have a wood floor in their most-used bathroom and it really isn't a problem. A bath mat or two and properly treated wood will do fine.

I have wood flooring in front of my bathroom sink and it doesn't rock for me. It's on my list for replacement. (But not this cure-around.)

I have also seen wood-look ceramic tiles. You would think it would look cheesy, but they had a bunch installed at the tile store and it actually looked really great. It was available in several different widths and colours. As I recall it was something like $11 a sq ft.

i'll take tiles thanks

I have wood-look ceramic tiles, I can clean tiles better than wood and I want my bathroom very very clean

Mark, if you are reading this... get back to work.

I have maple hardwood throughout the main living area of my home. I ended up running the maple into the laundry room and 1/2 bath because by the end of the remodel I was so sick of making decisions I couldn't pick out one more material-in this case tile. All this to say in 10 years no major problems except under the fridge where the ice-maker sprung a leak which I didn't notice for a bit.

We just ripped out some awful Home Depot-type "historic" tile in our 2nd floor bathroom, and were able to find wood plank-look ceramic tile that is a dead-on color match for the original maple floors throughout the rest of the upstairs.

Most people don't realize that it's tile in the bath, not wood. Our bath is small and is in the direct line of sight when coming up the stairs. Visually, it makes the bathroom seem larger because your eye goes straight down the hall, under the clawfoot tub, to the back wall, instead of being broken-up by white tile at the doorway threshold.

And the best part? The tile was $4/ft. with our contractor's discount.

The hardwood floor in bathroom thing is not as big a deal as people think. If you have a flood....carpet, walls, even tile can get ruined as well. A flood is an accident that is uncontrollable. I would not live in fear that my hardwood floor would be damaged because of this, that's what HO ins. is for.

Secondly, if you do a hardwood floor in a high usage bathroom, you merely need to recoat more often. After 4 or 5 coats you will have an impenetrable barrier.

If you do continue to get heavy wear, like a dulling finish, you can use a refresher. Its like a light polyurethane application that you apply yourself.

It helps to be neat and clean too but I guess that's not for me to worry about.

Hardwood Maniac

The place I rent has wood floors everywhere but the bathroom floor is a bit of a disaster. There was carpet over it when I moved in but I asked permission to pull it up and repair the wood underneath because carpet is gross. It wasn't really a mistake (although I didn't know the extent of the damage until after I'd removed the carpet) but it was a mess. It had rotted in a few places and there was evidence where it had already been patched over about half the bathroom.