Bath Tile Wainscoting
Flooring, Joe's Blog, Kitchens and Baths, Repairs and Installation by Joe Truini

When I designed our master bath, I knew from the onset that I wanted to use glazed porcelain floor tile that resembled tumbled marble. It has a weathered, old world look that I find more interesting than traditional polished marble. Plus, porcelain tile is much stronger and harder than real marble, so it’s less likely to crack. It’s also less porous and more stain resistant.
In any case, while buying the floor tile I saw a catalog photograph that showed the same tile applied to a bathroom wall, similar to wainscoting. I loved the look and immediately ordered enough tiles to cover the bottom 36” of my bath walls.
The wainscoting is made up of 10”x 10” tiles, a stone bead, 4”x 4” tiles and a stone chair rail. It wraps around the room, visually tying together the entire bath.
Besides the visual appeal of the wainscoting, I also like the fact I didn’t have to install any baseboard molding. The wall tile simply sits right on top of the floor tile.
2 Comments on “Bath Tile Wainscoting”
You can follow comments to this article by subscribing to the RSS news feed with your favorite feed reader.








November 9th, 2009 at 8:31 am
thinking of doing a ceramic stone wainscoting idea in my bathroom .my ceiling is 90 inches,how high should I go with my wainscoting.

joe t. Says:November 9th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Hey Yve, Wainscoting can be anywhere from about 32 to 36 inches high, although it’s typically closer to 36 inches. In your case, with the lower ceiling, you’d be ok with 32 to 34 inches high. However, the final height will be dependent somewhat on the tile size you choose. There’s no sense in cutting a bunch of tiles just to meet some arbitrary height. I’d suggest picking a tile size and pattern that you like, and not worry too much about the overall height. Good luck, Yve, and thanks for writing!–JT