Layout advice needed for Hallway Project

[clowny's sis]

Hi John, and all! I'm back with a few new projects, and would appreciate some advice before I begin. I plan to lay 12" light-colored travertine in a 14ft X 3ft hallway that has 3 separate doorways off the sides of the hall.

One doorway leads to a bathroom with a floor of 6" tumbled, honed travertine of a color and pattern that I can no longer find. (That floor was my first travertine project which was a success due to the help of the fine people on this website.) The second doorway, right next to the bathroom is the entry to the family room which has a glossy, neutral 13" ceramic tile. The third doorway is on the opposite side of the hall and leads to a carpeted bedroom.

The 12" tile is very neutral and looks fine with the other tile colors, but I would like to make the transition between them look as good as I can. Should I lay them in a "bricklayer" pattern and run them right into the doorways to meet the other tiles and carpet, or lay them in vertical rows and put a mosaic-type transition in the doorways? I plan to use oyster gray grout to match the bathroom grout. I am posting some photos in the two different layouts. If anyone has had experience with this situation and has some other ideas, I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance,

Jackie


Forum: Tile Forum/Advice Board Post New Thread

[stullis]

How about running the field tiles diagonally and your feature dots square with the hall?

[clowny's sis]

Thanks, Scott. I originally considered diagonal, then I thought there might be too much space between the tile corner points and the baseboards. Two tiles side by side span 34 1/4", and the hall width is 37 1/2 ". That leaves me 3 1/4 "total, or 1 5/8" space on each side from the tile point to the wall. The baseboard will take about 1/2", so there is about an inch to deal with. After laying some tiles out diagonally, I realize there would be just a little one-inch triangles of grout along the baseboards where the points do not quite make it to the baseboards. Is this acceptable, or would it look weird?
Also, if the tiles are layed diagonally, would I just tile in that pattern to meet the other 2 tiles and the carpet, or put some kind of transitional pattern in the doorways?
I do like the way the diagonal looks.

[stullis]

A border around the perimater would look nice too. Could really make it look formal/ regal.
You can finish up next to the other floors either way.
Maybe offset the diagonal pattern to the right to eliminate the small pieces along the wall since with the doorways it gives it an offcetneter look anyway.
Or offset the pattern to the left to make the pieces along the wall larger.

It really is whatever you think looks the best.

[clowny's sis]

I haven't layed the diagonal pattern the whole length of the hall, yet. I'll figure out how that fits, and use that info to determine the width of a border around the perimeter. Good idea, Scott. Thanks again!

Jackie

[Shaughnn]

Hi Jackie,
I like the broken joint pattern. It's uncommon, fits the space, and is interesting without being busy. As well, it can easily be extended into a large room and even wrapped through other rooms. While elegant in the hall, I think that the dotted pattern would quickly become too busy in a large room and be very awkward to center attractively. I don't think that long narrow spaces work well with a diagonal pattern, usually.
Hope that helped?,
Shaughnn

[clowny's sis]

I thought I would update this thread with a photo of my finished hallway. I really like how it turned out. I used the diagonal pattern. The 12-inch travertine is thicker than the other tile it is meeting in 2 of the doorways, so I just sanded a rounded finish as a transition and that worked well. I was a little hesitant to have tiny triangular pieces along the edges of the hall, but they look fine.

At the end of the hall where a bedroom doorway is I cut some rectangles as a border. I have taken up the carpet (which has left some funky turquoise vinyl exposed) and am deciding on an engineered wood for the bedroom. I have no idea what transition will be needed there. Here are some photos of the finished hallway.

Jackie

[Davy]

That turned out nice. I like the diagonal layout.