How to Install the Perfect Tile Checkered Floor

Have you been considering a checkered floor in your home? I just recently added gray and white checkerboard floor tile in our hallway bathroom. In this post, I’ll show you exactly how I installed our new checkerboard bathroom floor and I’ll also share what to consider while designing a checkered floor!

Note: This post may contain affiliate links, you can find more information in my disclosures here.

What is a checkered floor design?

A checkered floor design is typically created by alternating square floor tiles in a grid pattern with different colors.

Usually, a lighter tile is combined with a darker tile. This floor design style is also sometimes referred to as a checkerboard pattern.

It has been around for a long time and this classic look has recently gained in popularity again in the interior design world and you’ve probably also come across it on social media a lot.

Where can checkered floors be installed?

There are many spaces that will look great with a checkered floor. However, a checkered bathroom floor is one of the options I’ve seen the most recently! The bathroom is also where I installed our checkered floor.

I really wanted to do something a little different and out of my comfort zone for our hallway bathroom at the Hills House and a checkered tile bathroom floor seemed like a great option! I’m so glad I decided to include it there because I love how it turned out!

Some other popular rooms for checkered floors are:

• Hallways
• Laundry Rooms and
• Dining Rooms.

What are the most common checkered floor colors?

The most common color combinations for a checkerboard floor include white tile.

They are either a grey and white checkerboard floor or a black and white checkerboard floor.

Black tiles create more contrast compared to grey tiles but both checkerboard floor options look amazing when paired with white or off-white.

Another more subtle and unique option is a beige and white checkerboard floor.

What are the options for checkered floor materials?

There are so many great options for checkered floor tile. If you would like to try out the checkered floor look in one of your spaces but aren’t ready for a permanent commitment yet, checkered vinyl flooring like this could be a great option.

Otherwise, marble checkered floors, ceramic checkered floors or porcelain checkered floors are popular options.

Ceramic and porcelain will typically try to mimic a real marble checkered floor.

As beautiful as real marble tile is, sometimes it’s not the best option for high traffic areas as it’s a natural stone that typically requires more care and maintenance than ceramic tile or porcelain tile options. A checkered marble floor also tends to be on the pricier side than some other options.

For our checkered bathroom floor tiles I decided to go with these affordable silver marble glazed porcelain tiles and these bianco carrara glazed porcelain tiles:

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Click images to check current pricing and details!

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I love how our checkered tile floor bathroom turned out!

It mimics real marble checkered flooring but I don’t have to worry much about maintenance of these floors! They were also much for budget-friendly at that price point than a real marble checkerboard floor.

All of this combined made them the perfect choice for our bathroom!

What checkered floor tile size is recommended?

Tiles come in countless different sizes. A checkered floor with small tiles will have a different look than a checkerboard floor with large tiles.

The most important thing to consider when deciding on the size of your tile is the size of your room. Smaller tiles are frequently used in smaller spaces, but using larger tiles in a smaller space like a laundry room can create a more dramatic look.

A good rule of thumb regarding sizing is that you should have at least three whole tiles fit in each direction of your space.

One of the most common sizes used in checkered floor tile installations are classic 12″x12″ tiles.

I actually used these 12″x12″ tiles for our grey and white checkerboard floor in the hallway bathroom and it’s a relatively small space at about 40 square foot.

What are the most popular checkered floor layout options?

When it comes to layout of checkered tiles, there are two main ways to lay a checkerboard floor in: a grid pattern or a diamond pattern. For our bathroom with checkered floor, I decided to go with a diamond pattern!

If you would like to learn about the different layout options (not just for a checkerboard flooring design), check out my post about tile patterns.

My checkered floor installation

Now that we got some of the common questions about checkered floors answered, let me show you what our bathroom looked like before!

Here’s a picture of the bathroom that I took the day we closed on our house:

I have no doubt that someone put a lot of thought into designing this bathroom back in the day. It’s actually pretty impressive that the shower curtain, drapes and wallpaper match!

However, carpet in the bathroom is a decision I will never understand. I knew I’d be remodeling this bathroom at some point but didn’t have a solid plan right away. All I knew was that the carpet had to go – right away!

We removed the carpet, put down some Peel & Stick tiles, removed the wallpaper (I have a post on how to remove wallpaper if you’re curious!) and left this bathroom alone while we worked on the rest of the house. At least it was functional and I didn’t have to look at the carpet anymore, ha!

Here’s a picture of the temporary Peel & Stick floors before I pulled them up to get started on the new checkerboard floors:

Now that we got the before pictures out of the way, let me show you how I installed our checkered bathroom floor!

Materials

• Silver Marble Glazed Porcelain Tiles
• Bianco Carrara Glazed Porcelain Tiles
• Tile Mortar
• Tile Grout

Tools

• Wet Tile Saw
• Tape Measure
• Level
• Trowel
• Grout Float
• Grouting Sponge
• Small Bucket
• Microfiber Cloths

Step 1: Design checkered floor

The first step is to design and plan the new checkered floor. That includes making decisions on the checkered floor:

• Colors: For my project, I was considering a black and white checkered bathroom floor or even a beige and white checkered bathroom floor but ultimately I decided to go with a classic style grey and white checkerboard floor for our bathroom after bringing home a few flooring samples.
• Materials: As I mentioned above, I love the look of a marble checkered floor but knew I wanted to use a material that required less maintenance so I decided to use a porcelain tile that mimics the look of marble. It’s also more scratch-resistant which makes it a better option for us in a high traffic bathroom.
• Tile Size: Our bathroom is about 8′ x 5′ so I decided to avoid using some of the larger tile sizes and instead went with a standard 12″x12″ tile size which ended up being the ideal choice based on our bathroom size.
• Layout Option: I made the decision to go with a diamond pattern for the layout option in our bathroom.
• Grout Color: I wanted a clean and bright checkerboard look so I decided to go with my favorite white grout color to finish it all off.

I spent countless hours looking through the endless options for the right gray and white checkerboard bathroom floor tiles.

If you like how ours turned out, you can just skip this step and just order the marble-look porcelain tile I used online, ha! It actually comes in a few different color options and one of them looks a lot like white marble:

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Step 2: Plan and dry fit checkered floor

Before starting to lay any tile, I like to look at the space and plan placement of my tile and also decide what I want to do around any obstacles.

In my bathroom, I wanted to avoid tiny slivers of tile around the parameter of the bathroom. I did a quick dry fit of the tile and made some adjustments to the placement to make sure I wouldn’t end up with any awkward cuts.

In the picture below you can see that the gray tile won’t be perfectly centered on the doorway (the center is indicated by the pencil) but moving it over just a tiny bit avoids awkward slivers along the wall.

To me, that is a worthwhile tradeoff!

Step 3: Tiling the bathroom floor

I HIGHLY recommend taking your time with the first few tiles and not rushing the process. I believe the first few tiles are the most important because the rest of the space depends on it! Ensuring those first few tiles are perfectly level and placed correctly is key to get that perfect checkered pattern.

Note: Depending on your subfloors, the climate you live in and other factors, the floor prep needed before tiling might vary so it’s best to find out what’s needed before starting this project!

Applying mortar

Tip: I only applied mortar to a small section of the floor at a time so that I could take my time tiling without having to worry about the mortar drying out.

I used my trowel to apply the pre-mixed mortar and create the notches. Then, I used spacers to lay the tile. I applied a little bit of pressure to adhere the tile to the mortar:

I used a level for each tile to make sure it was perfectly level and to avoid lippage. Whenever needed I applied some light pressure to level out the tile:

I was also working in sections, laying one section of square tiles each day or every few days so that I could walk on the floor to access the next section:

I also marked the freshly laid tiles with painters tape to make sure I didn’t accidentally step on them before the mortar was dry:

It might be a good idea especially when working in a small space!

Cutting tile

This was my least favorite part of the project!

I typically use a score and snap tile cutter, which is less messy than a traditional wet saw and I can use it indoors.

The score and snap tile cutter cuts tile by scoring the tile with a little wheel first and then pressure is applied to snap it. I described the process in more detail here.

However, because I was using larger porcelain tiles for this project, I had to use my wet tile saw and it’s so messy and loud! Just something to keep in mind.

Step 4: Applying grout

Before applying the grout, I cleaned the entire floor thoroughly:

Then, I used Mapei Ultracolor Plus FA grout in my favorite color Avalanche for my checkerboard tiles.

I mixed the grout in small batches so that I could do one small section at a time.

I applied the grout with a grout float and let it sit according to the instructions:

Then, I used a small bucket with water and a grouting sponge to wipe off the excess:

After letting the grout dry, I removed any remaining grout haze with some water and a microfiber cloth. I find that those work really well for the final clean up!

I’m always so amazed to see the difference once the grout is finished!

Here is our checkered bathroom floor before grout:

Here is our checkered bathroom floor after grout:

I love the way it looks with the bright white Avalanche grout!

You can also kind of see in this before and after of our checkered tile floor bathroom that a darker grout color would make the checkered floor look completely different.

You can definitely go with a gray or dark gray grout that would highlight the grout lines more to still achieve a classic design but more moody look!

Step 5: Adding baseboards

This was one of my favorite steps during this project because it’s pretty easy and it just makes such a huge and satisfying difference!

I added the same 7 inch baseboards we have throughout the rest of our house but painted them white (SW Alabaster) like our walls to better match the checkered bathroom floor. I have a detailed post on how to install baseboards, feel free to check it out!

Here is one of the corners of the bathroom without baseboards:

And here is the same corner with baseboards:

I love how the new white baseboards really complete this bathroom with checkered floor!

Finished checkered floor

Seeing the progress of my projects is always so satisfying to me so I made sure to take some pictures along the way so you can see the progress, too!

Here’s the checkered floor without grout:

Here’s the checkered floor with grout:

And here is the checkered floor with grout and new baseboards:

Note: The bathroom is still missing the quarter round along the bathtub which I’ll add soon.

I really love how our faux marble checkered floor turned out! It love the more matte finish for a more timeless look, it was actually pretty hard to find the perfect tile that didn’t have a glossy finish.

I’m so happy the old carpet is gone and we have these awesome checkered bathroom floor tiles instead – what an upgrade! I think the marble tile look is perfect for this bathroom.

There’s plenty more to do in this bathroom in addition to these new tiles so be sure to check back in on the updates, I have some fun plans for this one and I saved some of my inspiration here if you’d like to take a peek!

Update: The hallway bathroom is done and you can find the full bathroom reveal here!

I especially love how the picture frame molding turned out!

As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Tina