If you are looking to give your bathroom a custom look, yet still stay within a budget, consider using unglazed ceramic floor tiles in a customized pattern. These tiles wear well, are slip resistant when wet and come in almost every color imaginable. Color pigment is consistent throughout the tile, so an accidental chip will not be readily apparent.

Using one or two-inch square tiles gives you or your interior designer the opportunity to create a custom pattern in a 12-inch wide run. This pattern can then be submitted to the tile manufacturer who sets the tiles on mesh webs for easy installation. Planning your floor design in this manner, you can get the look of a custom tile job at a great savings.

In a recent tile project, I designed the tile runs on the diagonal to follow the angles of the room and reversed the typical color pattern. Rather than having the floor predominately white with specks of accent color, the body of this floor is a rich gray color and the white plays as the accent with flecks of green. This inverted color scheme gives the room a rich appeal and the diagonal pattern helps to enlarge the overall look of the room.

Nan Ryder is an Interior Designer at Ecola Architects in Cannon Beach.