Tile is the longest-lived finish in any bathroom. You will swap a faucet in 12 years. You will repaint in 5. The tile stays for 20 to 40 years if it is installed right. Which means a bad tile pick is the longest mistake you can make in a bath.
Here are the four tile choices we are pulling out of Ottawa bathrooms most often, and what we are putting back in.
1. Glossy tile on shower floors
This is the most dangerous one on the list, not just the most dated. Glossy tile has a low coefficient of friction. Add water and soap and you have a surface that is genuinely slippery. We have seen real injuries from this. Older homeowners in particular.
The mistake usually happens when a homeowner picks a wall tile they like, then asks the contractor to use the matching floor tile. The wall tile is glossy because that is the look on the wall. The matching floor version often has the same glaze. The contractor installs it because the homeowner asked.
What to use instead: a slip-rated tile with a DCOF (Dynamic Coefficient of Friction) above 0.42. Most porcelain shower-floor tiles meet this if you specifically ask for it. Or use a 2 by 2 inch mosaic on the shower floor only, where the grout joints add traction even if the tile face is smooth. The walls can stay glossy. The floor cannot.
How to test slip rating before buying
Wet a sample with water and a small amount of liquid hand soap. Press the bottom of a wet bare foot onto the sample at a 30-degree angle. If your foot slides, the tile is too slippery for a shower floor. Real tile showrooms in Ottawa will let you do this test before ordering. If the showroom refuses, buy elsewhere.
2. Tiny mosaic in a big shower
A 1 by 1 inch mosaic on every wall of an oversized shower looks great in a Pinterest photo. In a real Ottawa house with hard water, it is a maintenance problem you will hate by year three.
The math is brutal. A 6-foot by 4-foot shower has 96 square feet of wall surface. At 1-inch mosaic with 1/16 inch grout joints, that is roughly 13,800 individual grout intersections. Every one of those joints collects soap film, mineral deposits, and eventually mildew. Cleaning the shower becomes a chore that takes 90 minutes instead of 15.
The same shower in a 12 by 24 inch porcelain plank format has about 60 grout joints total. The grout you do have is far easier to seal, easier to wipe down, and stays looking new four times longer.
If you want the texture and reflection a mosaic gives, use it as an accent: a niche back, a shower bench front, a single feature column. The rest of the surfaces should be larger format. The room reads as designed instead of busy, and you do not spend Saturday mornings on your knees with a grout brush.
3. Wood-look porcelain in 6-by-36 planks
Wood-look porcelain had a moment between 2016 and 2022. The 6-inch by 36-inch plank was the dominant size. Big-box stores stocked dozens of patterns. Builders loved it because it was cheap, durable, and waterproof.
The problem is the size. A real hardwood floor uses planks that are 4 to 8 inches wide and 36 to 84 inches long. The 6-by-36 porcelain reads as too short for its width. The pattern repeats every 4 to 6 planks because the printing rolls cycle. The eye picks up the repetition. Across a whole bathroom or basement floor, the room looks like it is wallpapered in the same image of wood.
What works in 2026: 8 by 48 or 9 by 60 inch porcelain planks with at least 8 different print pattern variations in the box. The longer plank reads more like real wood. The wider plank reads more like contemporary engineered hardwood. The 8-plus pattern variation kills the visible repeat. Or use a real engineered hardwood in the bathroom and just spec a waterproof underlayment, which is now common in primary baths in homes near the Glebe and Westboro.
Tile that mimics another material works only if you stop seeing the tile and start seeing the material. The 6-by-36 porcelain plank never crosses that line.
4. Dark grout that shows efflorescence
Dark grout is not inherently a mistake. It hides daily dirt better than light grout. The mistake is using dark grout in a wet area without understanding what efflorescence does to it.
Efflorescence is the white mineral residue that wicks up through cement-based grout when water hits it from one side and dries from another. In a shower with dark grout, water absorbs into the grout, dissolves a tiny bit of the calcium and other salts, and pushes them to the surface as the grout dries. The result is a chalky white film on dark grout. It is permanent. You can wipe it off, but it comes back the next time the shower is used.
The fix on a new build is to use an epoxy grout or a urethane grout in any wet area, not a cement-based grout. Epoxy grout costs about 60 percent more in materials and takes a more skilled installer, but it does not absorb water and does not show efflorescence. It also does not stain, does not need to be sealed every two years, and stays the colour you picked for 20-plus years.
If your contractor pushes back on epoxy grout because it is "harder to work with," you have the wrong contractor for a wet area. The skill exists in Ottawa. We use it on every shower we build.
What we are putting in instead
Here is the standard tile spec we use on a mid-range Ottawa bathroom right now. None of it is exotic. All of it ages well.
- Floor: 12 by 24 inch porcelain in a soft warm tone, slip-rated DCOF above 0.42, set in a 50 percent offset pattern
- Shower floor: 2 by 2 mosaic of the same colour family, or a single slab of porcelain with a linear drain
- Shower walls: 12 by 24 or 24 by 48 large-format porcelain in a quiet vein, vertical stack pattern
- Niche: a contrast tile, often a hand-glazed zellige or a stone mosaic, used only in the niche
- Grout: epoxy or urethane, colour matched to the tile within one shade so the joints disappear
- Trim: Schluter aluminum profile in matte black or brushed nickel at every transition, instead of bullnose tile
That spec costs about 15 percent more in materials than a builder-grade box-store package. The labour is similar because large-format tile actually goes faster than mosaic for a skilled crew. The result lasts 20-plus years and looks current the whole time.
How to spec your own tile so it does not date
Three rules. Pick a colour that the room can use as a background, not a feature. Pick a size large enough to read as a calm surface, not a busy pattern. Pick a finish appropriate to the location: matte and slip-rated for floors and shower floors, glossy or satin for walls, anything for accent niches.
If you follow those three rules, you almost cannot make a tile choice that ages badly. If you break any of them, you can.
For a tile spec that fits your project and your budget, our Ottawa bathroom renovation page walks through how we run materials selection. Or call 613-862-4555 for a free 48-hour assessment.
Tile is forever. Pick like it.