Matte or gloss tiles?

Hi gang, we are building a couple of mid-high spec homes and are a bit stuck with our ideas for tiling in the non-wet areas. These are a little higher spec than those we have previously done, and we are torn between 600*600 gloss, or matte. My wife thinks Matte are much harder to clean, but I am not convinced. I know gloss is a bit more striking on first impression, but from my experience glossy tiles are a b*stard to keep clean. I have no experience with Matte finish.

We are not interested in wood or fake wood.

What are your thoughts?
 
I like the look of a gloss tile, and they can look fantastic, but I'd hate to be cleaning them. I reckon they would show every little scuff mark, badly wiped up spills, bad mopping efforts.

When we did our bathroom a few months ago, we used the same tiles that we used on our downstairs living area. It is a matt tile but has specks of gloss in it, almost like the tiles are a bit wet (hard to describe). They look a bit like a polished concrete tile.

It is a rectified tile so the joints are seen but the grout doesn't get dirty.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I've mopped our bathroom floor once since it has been down. They don't get "dirty" as such but I used to have to mop the old plain colour tiles at least once a week, and really it should have been more regular. Every hair, every bit of dust, every bit of fluff off the toilet roll showed on the floor.

I LOVE my new tiles.

It might not the look you are after, but compared to a plain colour, or gloss tile, this almost matt tile finish is my pick. We also went with matt finish wall tile too and they hide the soap marks, the badly wiped down tile marks.

I'll use them again any day over the gloss wall tiles we used to have.



 
Hi Wylie tell me about it mate! We have gloss white tiles presently and have a choc and gold lab, who unfortunately are used to the good life as inside dogs.

I would buy one of those robot vacuum things if I wasn't scared that it would fill up in 5 minutes then overheat and cause a fire when filled with dog hair!

We have gone with gloss tiles for previous constructions as they can be quite striking, but as we are now living in one it has turned me off them a little :D

Those tiles look fantastic. Actually the whole room does!

May I ask what they are? I'd love to see a pic of them in living room or kitchen if you wouldn't mind? Sorry to be intrusive.
 
We have matt in the PPOR and I don't mind em. Good for kids and cool in the summer which is 9 months of the year in Perth.

Matt or gloss the grout still gets dirty which drives the misses mad.
 
Thanks Colin, yer the less grout the better!

I did a similar query on FB, and the answer I got was pretty overwhelming Matte!

Not what I expected, but certainly will be taken into consideration for our tile search on weekend!
 
Those tiles look fantastic. Actually the whole room does!

May I ask what they are? I'd love to see a pic of them in living room or kitchen if you wouldn't mind? Sorry to be intrusive.

Thank you. I'm loving my new bathroom.

The tiles are here - http://www.tilestonepaver.com.au/ep...nkcorp/Products/VT30628P/SubProducts/VT60628P

We got them in 600mm x 600mm and they would be my first choice if we ever tile anything again.

I'll see if I can get a photo of them in the downstairs living room and post it here later today.
 
We have gloss in our house which looks really good but is the biggest PITA to keep clean.Shows up every speck of dirt. Doesn't help that they're white tiles too. Even when we mop them in a certain light you can see the mop streaks on the tiles. They're also really slippery.

There's been a few times I've nearly lost it in the bathroom because the tiles have been wet. Especially if there's conditioner on the shower floor - even standing still is hard and one wrong movement and you're goooone. More effective than my morning coffee at waking me up, that's for sure.

In saying that, I would get the gloss again. They reflect the light well and make the place seem for spacious and in most situations they look more 'premium' than matte tiles.
 
In the previous house we had 600x600 gloss tiles and I didn't have a problem with them at all. We had people over most weekends. Just used one of those steam floor cleaner things once a week.

But matt tiles can look very classy depending on what you choose. Understated elegance rather than scream look at me.
 
For gloss tiles, you need the floor to be perfect. If you have a perfect floor, I prefer gloss. If there are some valleys in the floor, and you are not bothered to top it, then go matte as it 'blends' the floor imperfections.

For the record I have full polished marble floors, 2.5mm grout joints. As a natural stone colour (Pietra Grey), they hide any dirt and dust on the floor. But who has dirty floors when you have $100/m2 tiles on the floor and have to repolish annually :eek: ?


pinkboy
 
Hi Wylie tell me about it mate! We have gloss white tiles presently and have a choc and gold lab, who unfortunately are used to the good life as inside dogs.

I would buy one of those robot vacuum things if I wasn't scared that it would fill up in 5 minutes then overheat and cause a fire when filled with dog hair!

We have gone with gloss tiles for previous constructions as they can be quite striking, but as we are now living in one it has turned me off them a little :D

Those tiles look fantastic. Actually the whole room does!

May I ask what they are? I'd love to see a pic of them in living room or kitchen if you wouldn't mind? Sorry to be intrusive.

Get a neato robotic vac, all the other ones are useless and overpriced. We have 2 golden retrievers and it's been working everyday for 1 year without any big issues. Could use some new batteries now but that's about it. Gets about 2 big handfulls of dog hair every single day.
 
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