How to choose floor tiles for a renovation

Porcelain, ceramic or stone?

For floors, porcelain wins almost every category that matters. It's denser than ceramic (water absorption below 0.5%), harder than most natural stone, and modern inkjet printing produces marble, travertine and concrete looks that are convincing even at close range.

Ceramic still has a place on walls — it's lighter and easier to cut — but on a floor that takes furniture, foot traffic and the occasional dropped pan, ceramic chips. Use porcelain.

Natural stone (travertine, marble, limestone) is beautiful and unique, but it's porous, requires sealing every couple of years, etches with anything acidic (lemon juice, wine, cleaning products), and costs two to four times what a convincing porcelain look-alike costs. If you want stone for the right reasons — the texture, the patina, the knowledge that no two tiles are the same — buy stone. Otherwise, buy porcelain that looks like stone.

Format: how big should the tile be?

Bigger tiles make small rooms feel bigger. Fewer grout lines, less visual noise, more apparent surface. The trend over the last decade has been firmly toward large format — 600×600mm is the new minimum on a contemporary floor, 600×1200mm reads like a slab, and 1200×1200mm or larger turns floors into one continuous plane.

Three caveats. First, large tiles need a flat substrate — anything over 600mm needs tolerance of about 3mm over a 2m straight edge, which is tighter than a typical screed. Your tiler will need to skim or self-level if the slab isn't there. Second, large tiles need the right adhesive (a deformable C2 S1 minimum) and full back-buttering — not the dot-and-dab method that's fine on 300×300. Third, large tiles are heavy and expensive to replace if cracked, so the substrate prep is even more important than usual.

For bathrooms, 600×600 or 600×1200 is the sweet spot. For open-plan living areas, 600×1200 or 1200×1200 large format. Outdoors, 600×600×20mm pavers in a butt-joint grid look modern and shed water well.

Finish: matt, satin, polished, structured

Finish affects three things: how the tile looks, how it feels underfoot, and how slippery it is when wet.

Matt is the contemporary default — soft, low-glare, hides marks and fingerprints. Most marble-look and concrete-look porcelain is matt. Safe in wet areas with a light texture.

Satin or honed sits between matt and polished — slight sheen, more depth on dark or veined tiles, still relatively low maintenance. Honed travertine is the classic example: warm, soft, but more luminous than matt.

Polished reflects light and emphasises veining on marble looks — but shows every footprint, every splash, every crumb. Avoid in kitchens and bathrooms unless you enjoy cleaning. Best on feature walls and in formal living rooms.

Structured (R10, R11, R12) means the surface has been given a deliberate texture for grip. Mandatory outdoors and around pools. Available as the same tile design as the indoor matt version, so you can run a visually identical floor from the kitchen straight out to the alfresco — just specify the structured version for the outdoor portion.

Slip rating — what you actually need

Australia uses two systems: the P rating (pendulum test, AS 4586) for residential and commercial wet/dry areas, and the R rating (ramp test, German DIN) often quoted on European tiles.

The short version:

• Indoor dry areas (living, bedroom, hallway): P2 or R9 is fine.
• Indoor wet areas (bathroom floor, laundry): P3 minimum, R10 ideal.
• Showers (inside the cubicle): P3 minimum, P4 if you have older users in the home. Mosaics often help here because the grout joints add grip.
• External pavers, alfresco, pool surrounds: P4 or P5, R11 or R12.

If a tile doesn't list a rating, ask before buying. A reputable supplier will have the test certificates from the manufacturer.

Rectified vs cushion edge

Rectified means the tile has been mechanically ground after firing to give a perfectly square edge. This allows tight grout joints (2–3mm), which is the modern look — almost a continuous surface.

Cushion edge(sometimes called "pressed" or "non-rectified") has a slight bevel from the firing process, which requires a wider grout joint (typically 4–5mm) to accommodate the size variation between tiles. Cheaper, slightly more forgiving on a wonky substrate, but visually busier.

Almost every premium porcelain on the market is rectified. If you're shown a tile and the edge looks bevelled, that's a tell about the price tier.

Colour and how it changes the room

Three rules of thumb that hold up:

• Light floors make a room feel larger and cooler. Dark floors make it feel smaller and more contained — fine for a formal living room, less ideal for a small ensuite.
• Warm undertones (cream, beige, taupe, soft greige) age better than cool greys. Cool grey was the 2015–2020 default and now reads dated. Warm neutrals are the safer ten-year bet.
• Veining direction matters in large format. Vertical veining stretches a room. Horizontal veining widens it. Many marble-look ranges supply both orientations — ask before ordering.

Always take a sample home. Showroom lighting is colour-neutral and bright; your kitchen at 4pm in winter is neither. The same tile can read warm in one light and grey in another. A 200×200 sample on the floor for 48 hours will tell you more than a hundred showroom comparisons.

Cost — what you're really paying for

Floor porcelain in Australia ranges from around $35/m² to $200/m². The price spread mostly reflects four things:

• Country of origin.Italian and Spanish porcelain costs roughly twice what equivalent Chinese or Indian product costs, and the difference is mostly in the printing detail and the consistency of the body. Whether that's worth the premium depends on the design — a plain matt grey doesn't need to be Italian; a complex marble vein does.
• Format. Larger formats cost more per square metre because of breakage rates in transit and the larger presses required.
• Finish complexity. Polished, structured, and multi-layer matt cost more than a flat matt.
• Range exclusivity.Some suppliers carry ranges that aren't in any chain store, and charge accordingly.

On top of the tile cost, budget $80–$140/m² for installation in Australia (more for large format, mosaic detail, or herringbone lays), plus adhesive and grout (~$10/m²). For a 60m² floor, the install can easily exceed the tile cost.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Ordering exactly the right amount. Always order 10–15% extra. Cuts, breakage, future repairs. If you have to come back six months later for two replacement tiles, the dye lot will be different.

Choosing tiles before you choose the cabinetry. The tile is the bigger surface and more permanent decision, but the cabinetry pulls the colour palette. Pick the floor first, then build the joinery palette around it.

Ignoring batch numbers. Porcelain is fired in batches and slight colour variation between batches is normal. Confirm at order that all the tiles will come from the same batch, especially for marble looks.

Trusting a photo on a phone screen. Veining, undertone and texture all read differently in person. Photos are a starting point. Samples are the decision.