Wooden flooring has a pretty distinct look – a warm look that can make a home feel sleek or rustic, depending on the other features of the house. Often, people wonder if they can have wooden flooring in their bathroom and how to maintain the flooring once it is in. Wooden flooring isn’t a super common choice when it comes to rooms that are known to be steamy, wet and moist more often then others, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a wooden flooring.
If you are going to go with wooden flooring in your bathroom, you are going to want to go with an engineered wood flooring as this type of wooden flooring is more water resistant then normal wooden flooring, giving you more of a fighting chance to keep your flooring perfect. Unlike when you have wooden flooring in other spaces in your home, your bathroom floor will need a bit more upkeep an maintenance, but it is still do-able if you want this sort of look for your home.
Refinishing Your Wooden Floor
One of your first layers of defence against water is your floor’s finish. You will need to re-apply finish to your wooden floor every few months, to ensure that water won’t be absorbed into your flooring. You will be able to test if your flooring needs a new coat of finishing by dropping a bit of water onto your floor. If that water is absorbed after a few moments, it is time to refinish your flooring. If it bubbles up into water droplets, you are fine for the moment as the finish is still holding up and working.
Protect around your Shower or Bath
If you’ve got a shower or bath in your bathroom, you will want to think about protecting your floor from water droplets and wet feet. The most common item used to protect your floor is bath mats – though you will want a bath mat with a rubber backing to them, which will stop any water from leaking through. If your bath mat gets too wet, you will want to let it air dry hanging up, as moisture kept against the floor will not do it any good. You can also consider installing a surrounding to your tub – tile surroundings act as a bit of a shelf around your bathtub and can help prevent water from splashing onto your floor. Checking to ensure the joints of your shower are properly sealed can also prevent leakage.
Clean up water quickly
Any water spilled onto your wooden floor needs to be cleaned up quickly and the floor will need to dry completely, without leaving moist towels on it or soaked bath mats. You’ll want to clean up all water within two hours of them forming on the floor, as any longer really can cause a lot of problems. If you notice that your flooring has areas that pool water, it might be uneven, so you may want to take the time to get the floor re-set so that there isn’t problem areas that end up destroying our flooring completely.
Check on your other fixtures
You should take a look at the other pipes and fixtures within your bathroom, to ensure they aren’t causing any extra leaks or build up of moisture. Sometimes, pipes that are hidden away are ones that can end up causing a lot of damage as they go unnoticed for long amounts of time. Toilet tanks can collect condensation at times, due to being much colder in temperature to the bathroom, and that moisture can turn into water that drops down to the floor. You will need to make sure that pipe openings are caulked and that there aren’t any links or drips that are causing problems.
Wooden flooring can be such a nice touch to any home, and with a bit of work you can really keep them well done. If you do have issues with your floor, you can always sand it down and refinish it! My grandmother has always had a wooden floor in her bathroom, and I do remember her struggles growing up with keeping us kids from splashing all over the place!
This is really interesting as I wouldn’t have thought to put a wood floor in a bathroom as I would assume it would get damaged but it seems like with a little work it works (and looks beautiful).
It does look beautiful!
I live wooden floors but I went with tiled floors for my bathroom as I thought they would be to much work to care for
Tiles are much easier!
I would love a wooden floor in the bathroom but I’ve always been concerned about water. Thanks for these tips!
Water is the issue!
I have never had a wooden floor neither in the house nor in the bathroom, but especially in this last room its maintenance has always intrigued me!
It’s an interesting floor to keep up with it.
I love to have wood in as many rooms as possible. It is important o make sure you put measures in place to keep it from getting damaged.
Yeah, bathroom wooden floors do take more effort!
i used to have wood flolors. their maintenance requires a certain knowledge that’s for sure
It does indeed.
The wooden floor is gorgeous!!! I’ve always thought it would be very difficult to maintain. Amazing tips! Thank you.
It’s not too hard.
I love wooden floor and hoping to change ours for newer ones. I will be bookmarking this site so I remember how to care for them and maintain the look
Hope it helps!
I would love to have a wood bathroom floor. I would have no carpet if I could,
I dislike carpet in bathrooms so much! I find they hold all the moisture in the air.
Such beautiful floors! I want wood floors in my bathroom and this will be very helpful!
Glad you found it helpful!
Pretty interesting post. Love this and I want to install wood floors in my new home…. But not in the bathroom. I always love a clean crisp tile look.
Tile are quite nice too!
I have never had wooden flooring in the bathroom but have always wanted to as it looks so stunning . Some great tips and tricks you’ve got here
I hope you are able to get one someday.
I’ve found this post really interesting. I would never of thought a bathroom could have a wooden floor but now I’m intrigued.
They can! And it looks great.
That bathtub is beautiful…the floor not so much. I have never even seen wood flooring in a bathroom.
My grandmother always had wooden flooring in her bathroom!