New flooring in bathroom

[NBee]

Hi all.

We currently have a carpet in our bathroom, but it's very high maintenance due to cat hairs! We want to lay a smooth surface for easy cleaning, but we want to maintain some softness and insulation. It's a first floor, and the boards are quite bumpy and uneven in places so I'm not sure it's really suited to tiles.

What kind of flooring would be best for this?

Also, I'm not massively confident about laying it - how do I get around the bath and sink? I did the carpet myself, but this kind of flooring would require much more accuracy and I can't see it looking good after I've hacked it. Do any of the stores offer this service?

Thanks for any advice to get me started.

 

[Symptoms]

NBee - as you want something smooth, soft and with a degree of insulation consider vinyl; also dead easy to keep clean.

The floorboards will have to be skinned with thin ply (6mm) to provide a smooth base for the vinyl, the ply can be fixed with annular nails. This is an easy task for a DIYer. Use the search function above to find recent posts on this subject.

Laying the sheet of vinyl can be done by the DIYer but there is always a risk of untidy cuts at the edges and around the bog, bidet, and pedestal basin so maybe you should consider getting a pro fitter in to do this. All the retail park outlets for vinyl (carpet shops) provide a fitting service so it's a 'one stop' job.

edit:
Here is a shortcut to a current thread on the subject:
http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=173091

 

[NBee]

Thanks for the advice Symptoms.

The thread you pointed me to says to cut the vinyl short of the edge and use a silicone bead - that doesn't sound like it would look to great to me, can you expand further on that? It also says no adhesive - wouldn't it move around easily?

 

[Symptoms]

NBee - sorry about that but the bit of that thread I was pointing you to was about skinning with ply.

I to share your concern about raggy edged vinyl being disguised by clagging-on silicon but a decent installer should get a good, straight, tight edge often applying a neat bead of transparent silicon - something you'd be hard pressed to notice. You don't stick vinyl down, only lino gets that treatment