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Hi All. Im going to be attempting to tile my bathroom floor this week and need a little advice on the setting out and also which pattern i should follow. The room is about 2.5x1.8m with the bath on the left main wall as you walk through the door, the wash basin on the end of that wall and the toilet directly in front of you on the back wall as you walk in (i realise pictures would help a lot here). The wall tiles are 25x33 plain white, tiled horizontally going lengthways.
the floor tiles i have are 60x30. The question is do i tile in the same direction ie. front to back or go across the room? Part of me thinks the latter will be easier because it will mean not as many lengthway cuts on my cheap tile cutter and more impoortantly, that the wonky walls won't be as noticeable as the eyes won't be drawn in that direction. However, sensibly i think i should go in the same direction as the wall tiles and also that done properly the lengthways route could look better.

The next question is where do i start in terms of setting out? my initial thoughts were to centre between the main wall and bath at a right angle to the door line and then work around this. That way providing there is at least one main straight and square line as you walk through the door things should look okay. The issue is that the wall that the door is on may not be completely square to everything else and so by doing this the eye will be drawn in the wrong direction.

Finally, the size and shape of the tiles lend themselves to fitting in a brick pattern but im not particuarly confident and can see this going wrong if done badly. Will they look okay if i just line them up as normal (this is how the wall tiles are done)? if i do go for the brick pattern, will this change things when setting out out

Broken bond or brick effect will depend on how flat the tiles are. That size will normally produce lipping. place two together face to face, hold up to the light and you will see they are bowed. This will show up when laid broken bond. How much, depends on how bowed they are.

Normally you set a room out coming centre off door opening. Just depends how this works out with cuts.

Something, you need to work out really.

i tried laying them out this afternoon and touch-wood it looks like there shouldn't be too many shitty cuts. The width of the room means i can get three across at the widest point and 2 where the bath is, allowing for a small overhang under the bath panel so pretty good. I tried it laying them horizontally in a grid pattern and it didn't look quite right. Ive tried it horizontally in the brick bond pattern but again im not sure if it makes the room look a bit small as there's only three tiles at the widest point - going lengthways may work better but im struggling to get to grips with how to square the lines to the room. Also, if i do it as in the pic, im going to be left with a cut at the opposite/far wall and a slither by the door which can obviously be adjusted one way or the other. But which end is it best to make the cut? far or by the door - ive read mixed things about which is best

On tinternet is says to square from a focal wall - which in my case should be the opposite wall to the door i guess?

Don't forget the internet is a funny place........it isn't necessarily a doctor giving medical answers, could be a dustman or 12 year old kid!

You set out squarely for what comes out the best. No point having a straight line of tiles on the focal wall with 3 pi55ed walls, when the focal wall has a toilet and basin on it and hardly any cuts showing. Then it would be best having those tiles pi55ed and 3 straight cut walls.

Setting out is always what comes out the best of a best situation or the best of a bad one. 400 tiles can look crap no matter how they are set out, depending on room but 350 or 450 tiles would be bang on.

i realise what you mean by the lipping thing now and so am going to do away with the broken-bond pattern and lay them in a grid, going lengthways with the direction of the room. I'm planning on going square from the doorway which should also be parallel to the bath and hopefully not too out from the main wall on the left. As you say, the rest of the room will be taken up by the sink, toilet etc. so it makes more sense to focus on the main corridor section as i enter the room.

if i centre the first tile at the centre point in the room i should be able to get in 3 full tiles and 2 half tiles i.e. one at either end, give or take a few mm here and there. The room is about 2.5m long so i think it should work out quite well.