Shower Tile Grout
 

Going to romodel a bathroom, including a shower stall. Going to go with white subway tile for the walls with a grey grout for contrast. But for the floor of the shower stall, I envisioned black tile (1" hexagonal) with white grout. That's the question: is it a bad idea to use white grout for a shower stall? Will I be doomed to mildew or other discoloration problems?

How hard is your water?

I think you could get away with it (but it would require a lot of work), but I think it would be better if you didn't.

I think you would need to seal the hell out of the grout, use very thin grout lines. We had tile floors in our old home 1st floor only about 1000sqft. After years of family and pets, the grout looked horrible and it was a fairly medium shade and tone. My wife found some "grout paint" that was great and seemed in the time that we were in the house to be essentially waterproof.

10%bleach and water solution, or a commercial mildew spray, no worries.

I recommend staying with the same grout color throughout the shower. Gray would look great with black. There are so many cool options out there now, have you considered a beach stone floor in a complementary color (different hues of black/gray) for the floor? Even the big box stores carry the stuff but for really awesome material visit your local flooring specialty store for ideas. Post some pictures of your adventure...we are here to help!

I don't have any official method of measure, but judging by the lime scale on our faucets and the fishtank filters, I think our water's probably pretty hard.


Sorry, that was the other idea that I neglected to mention: uniform color grout throughout the bathroom. All grey? Or all white? Grey looks better for the sharp contrast with the wall subway tile (and it's what we're going to do in the kitchen), but does it get lost on a black tile floor in a small shower stall? White looks better for contrast on black floor, but may have issues keeping it clean, plus it'll get lost on the white tile walls.

Again, this question of ease-of-grout-maintenance is only for the shower stall. For the main flooring of the bathroom, we're going with a darker grey 12"x24" close-set tile (so very thin grout lines).

I know it's not what you asked, but I question dark tile if you havehard water

epoxy grout

That's run through my mind, as well. I've thought about it, but my WAG is that our water isn't so hard that black floor tile in a shower stall is going to be a big problem.

Or do I just say F it, make it all white tile (walls 3x6 subway, floor 1" hexagons) with grey grout. That may be the ticket.

Black grout...

I would think the white would be easiest to clean.


I don't know how your water compares to ours, but ours is hard AF. We put in black counters and anywhere a spot of water is left to dry it leaves a visible spot. I would think a shower floor would drive you nuts.


And definitely go with epoxy grout.

Noah, for black tile, I try to stick with gray (Custom Product's Natural Gray) if you are worry about hard water. If not, normally like to blend the grout into the tile using the closest color matching the tile. I dislike the look of showing grout joint purposely. Think about having a 1/16" joint or use the nibs on the tile as grout spacer. Keep it small for ease of cleaning.

have slate tile, grey grout, and hard water (I didn't know, had BR redone before we moved in). I can confirm that is not a good combo, I'm alwyas scrubbing tile and grout for calcium (or whatever it is) whitish deposits. I'd not coming off either...