Ceramic tile flooring for home....need input/suggestions.

I am wanting to redo the floors on first floor of my house. Currently have combination of stained concrete floors and 12 in Italian tile in kitchen and laundry room. We have been wanting to change flooring and would like Hardwood throughout entire first floor. Slab Foundation.

I typically like real materials. That is I don't want to do laminate or engineered wood. However I have seen an upscale ceramic tile that resembles aged Barnwood. I really don't want to put down hardwood glued to Foundation. Does anybody have any experience with the wood look ceramic tiles measuring 6 in by 48 in? This goes against the grain of wanting real materials but I don't think the hardwood would stand up to Kitchen moisture Etc. It goes against what I believe in using only real products but wanted to know if anybody has used this type of tile.?

Architecture of house is contemporary with natural rough cut cypress and stone.

I did it with 6x24 tiles in my CA house with 1/8 grout lines.

Basically I put RedGard down as the disconnect membrane on the slab then laid the tile on top of that. It resulted in a virtually voidless installation which was pretty much indestructible. My 2 year old at the time hit it with a framing hammer and didn't crack the tile, just a small chip.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

In reply to The0retical :

Very pretty.  How is it on maintenance, cleaning etc?  How long have you had it?   Any wear issues in high traffic areas? Did you consider no grout spacing?

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

I wanted really thin grout lines, now that I think back they were 1/16 grout lines because we turned the spacers on their sides, and ended up with a pearl grey grout. I never really thought about zero grout. I did get a rectified tile so it was way easier to finish with the thin lines than non rectified.

The floors ended up being a huge selling point when we sold the house in late 2016.

In the three years it was there all I did was seal the grout once, run a dust mop over it, and wash it every now and again. The grout turned a bit darker in the kitchen but the porcelain tile showed no wear other than the chip from the framing hammer. 

I had an 80lb herding dog mutt and a 0 to 3 year old on it every day we owned it. So the floor saw a lot of traffic.

I have solid hickory floors in my new/current house and I want the porcelain back desperately.

Sorry typing on my phone in the airport. I'll expand on your questions later if you want when I have a keyboard.

I love the  idea of the wood look tile, I'm just afraid of the coldness and if it's going to be look backed on like linoleum .

In reply to Enyar :

It was a little cool in the winter but awesome in the summer. If I were to do it in the Northeast I'd put some radiant heat down because I'm getting old. Wood gets kinda chilly too, though not as chilly.

We did the vinyl plank flooring that looks like wood when we finished out th basement last year.  $pendy, but holding up really well.  No grout lines either. 

Looks better than the wood floors upstairs that the dog keeps gouging by repeatedly dropping a heavy bone on for the noise it makes. 

Enyar said:

I love the  idea of the wood look tile, I'm just afraid of the coldness and if it's going to be look backed on like linoleum .

The future linoleum is one of my concerns.  I have concrete floors now so cold floor doesn't bother me as I live in south.

In reply to The0retical :

I have stained concrete floors now.  No cracks or moisture issues.  Given that do you think Redgard would be necessary?  I'm going with a professional installer if I do this so I guess I'll go with their recomendation.

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

You can get away with tarpaper or felt for the most part. My slab was spiderwebbed pretty good in a few spots, and cracked in others. I didn't want any flex or chance of flex due to kiddo and doggo so we opted for the more expensive RedGard. 

I'd go with what your installer suggests unless you have some sort of special reason not to (ie rolling an engine stand into the living room.) Children are weird little creatures so that was my special circumstance, plus there was some other heavy remodeling in the near future for that house. 

Finally in my case we had a slab leak a month or so earlier destroying the carpet. So insurance paid for 80% of the flooring which made it easy for me to spring for the extras. 

If I did tile I'd definitely do floating tile plank. 

It's a bit more expensive, and limited in styles, but for the sake of your own future options, as well those options of future homeowners, it's so much easier to remove. 

Having lived someplace with out of date tile covering half the total floor space, I'd be hesitant to buy a spot with it again unless many other aspects of the house were perfect. It's not an easy job to remove tile - especially when it was installed under cabinets. 

I hate when canoes insult our deceased friends with their crap. 
 

RIP O&F. You are missed.