Tell me about penny tile

[Anonymous]

I’d like to renovate our kids bathroom and am drawn to penny tile. Does it cost more to install? Is it a pain for contractors to do? Ideally, I’d like to add some simple color patterns that would require cutting and placing some of the tiles. Is that cost prohibitive for a job I’d like to spend less than $20k for the entire bathroom remodel?

Alternatively, I saw a picture of larger 10cm white penny tile with light blue grout. Any experience with colored grout? Pros/cons?

[Anonymous]

Look at daltile mosaics. You can design patterns that come as a sheet. Wouldn’t think it would be that much more complicated than regular tile for an installer.

[Anonymous]

Penny tile isn’t hard to install; it comes as a sheet. We have it in our basement shower. It’s. Lot of grout, though, for good or bad.

[Anonymous]

Penny tile is cute, comes in so many colors, and is not expensive. Great design choice for a kids bathroom, imho!

[Anonymous]

I like the hex tile over the rounds. Round penny tile has too much grout to tile ratio.

[Anonymous]

Unless you use darker grout, penny tile does not wear well in a kids bathroom. Also, grout is not really water proof and kids tend to get things wetter. Better to choose a larger format with less grout.

(Ask me how i know)

[Anonymous]

We have it in our shower. Very hard to keep clean—there’s a lot of grout compared to regular tile. Wouldn’t recommend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penny tile isn’t hard to install; it comes as a sheet. We have it in our basement shower. It’s. Lot of grout, though, for good or bad.

This. Just note the grout can be hard to clean if you're not constantly on top of it.

[Anonymous]

Mo grout mo problems

[Anonymous]

I also have it in my shower. It's a lot of grout and because the grout is not straight lines it does take extra effort to clean, sort of. Any mosaic tile grout takes effort to clean, but sealing it regularly and using special grout sprays does really help.
My installer mentioned he likes 2" hex more. Not quite sure why though he did mention if you need to replace any tiles it's easier to do. I don't anticipate doing that regularly though.
The 2" hex also has lots of grout lines btw, they're just straight.
Btw river stones is even worse in terms of grout!
Making your own mosaic patterns is easy. You can do it yourself by replacing the ones you want on the sheet.

[Anonymous]

Oh and, maybe consider the epoxy grout option. It's not THAT much more expensive but contractors hate doing it and will give you every ecuse not to.

[Anonymous]

You should do actual pennies.

[Anonymous]

This is helpful! It wouldn’t be a shower floor but kids are messy and spill. Guessing if it’s not constantly wet, cleaning it wouldn’t be that much of a pain. (Assuming it’s harder to clean bc of milder/mold in a shower?)

[Anonymous]

We used something similar to penny tile in the shower floor and it is a huge pain to keep it clean. It's my shower so I clean it every other day but would never do it in the kids room. Will just get mildew. Our bathroom is small and well ventilated too. The smaller tiles just seem to hold water in the crevices a tad bit longer and need to be cleaned.

[Anonymous]

My office has accent penny tile as a backsplash in a few areas and it’s cute but they aren’t getting much wear and tear.