Stand in your bathroom and take a good look around.
The perfect feel and look of the space are reassuring, right?
It is different for everyone. However, a bathroom that is flexible and functional is key for every home.
And your bathroom space should be the nicest smelling and cleanest part of your home.
One thing, however, that can easily turn your bathroom/toilet into a soggy hell or a beautiful place is the rug.
So, Are Toilet Rugs Tacky?
There’s no straight answer to that question – it depends. There are situations that will make the rug wet and soggy or straight bothersome. Then there are situations you’ll have no issues with your rug.
If you choose the wrong kind of rug, it’s certainly going to feel tacky especially if it has poor adsorbent properties.
Two Reasons Why A Toilet Rug Is Suitable
The rug won’t feel tacky in these situations:
1. The floor is super cold
The best way to make cold floors a bit bearable is to heat them or add a subfloor.
However, the cost of installing the heating element is lengthy and expensive.
Adding a layer of the subfloor is equally costly.
The cheapest and easiest option is a rug. You can install both if you have everything it takes.
2. There’s a falling risk
If you often fall in the bathroom after taking a bath or standing from the toilet, then you should probably install one.
You need to be careful though – some types of rugs can increase the risk of falling.
The traditional bath rugs and mats can increase this risk because they are bulky and are more likely to flip up or slide.
A good solution to the sliding rug/mat is to opt for a low-profile/non-skid option designed specifically to soak up the dripping water while maintaining a firm grip on the floor.
Four Reasons To Do Away With Toilet Rugs
You probably don’t need to install a toilet rug in these circumstances:
1. Your toilet prone to dampness
Some bathrooms or toilet spaces are not places for area rugs or even wall-to-wall carpets.
Some rugs can’t be properly cleaned or kept dry in this environment if it is prone to accumulate moisture.
Think of all the germs that will grow on the wall and floor of your bathroom.
Dampness, whether on rugs, floor, or walls is a favorable magnet for mold. So, if that’s the situation in your bathroom, it would be wise to keep those rug plans on hold a little – it is not worth the trouble.
If you want a rug so bad even when it’s clear to you it will get soggy or damp, we suggest you go for a special machine-washable bathroom mat.
This unique class of mats normally features a rubber backing that prevents them from absorbing the moisture from the floor.
You can use one of these right after a bath or shower then let it dry on the sides of the shower or tub when you don’t need it. We’d suggest a non-slipping CB2 lateral teak toile mat.
Also, don’t install one if you hate the chores that come with washing and maintaining it. The rug can sometimes turn into a liability very much like your shower curtain.
The problem is that most people don’t find it fun to wash them often even though it is always recommended you wash them once in a while to stay usable.
Many people find it easier to just hang them to dry or simply fling them over the closest towel rack.
Because of the close attention these rugs demand from users, you should think long term when acquiring one – chances are you won’t meet the cleaning needs.
2. You are old or disabled
Rugs may end up being an unnecessary bother to some users besides being tacky.
Some of these users are seniors or people living with movement disabilities.
So, if you fall into one of these two groups, it may be a bit hard to bend to place the rug in the proper position or to clean it.
Therefore, sometimes the mold can build up below it and make it slippery. Before you know it, you’d have slipped and injured yourself.
3. You dislike replacing rugs frequently
You may realize that if you install toilet rugs you are compelled to replace them once every few months as the rubber deteriorates or turns grimy.
This may easily take a toll on your finances because premium rugs aren’t the cheapest spreads you’d find out there.
4. Your floor is designed to drain water
Let’s first revisit the function of the toilet rug (or bath rug). Just like the tub mat, a toilet rug absorbs the water flowing from your feet and body when you step out of the bath or shower.
Basically, it helps keep excess water off your floor and can go a long way to prevent slipping on wet floors. 100% cotton bathroom rug is the perfect alternative, as cotton tends to absorb many times its own weight in water. It also dries faster.
As such, whether you should install a rug in your toilet can depend on the kind of floor.
If the floor is made of stone or hardy porcelain complete with a middle drain line to let water flow off, then you probably don’t need to install a rug.
Four Factors To Suitable Toilet Rugs
As aforementioned, not just any kind of rug will be perfect for your toilet. Whether it will feel tacky can also depend on the kind of fiber, the base, and even the thickness.
1. Non-Slip Microfiber Toilet Rug
This kind of rug has become standard for bathroom installation. It comes with chenille textured microfiber stacked with multiple practical highlights.
Talking of its self-drying abilities and extraordinary absorbency, it keeps mold and bacteria at bay while absorbing the water dripping off your feet just after a bath. There is another reason why it is preferred for bathroom application – most of them comes with anti-slipping and sliding bases that help avoid sliding and slipping around the washroom.
2. Colors
A few rugs come in just a few hues, like in mild grey or neutral shades of white and grey though others feature progressively more radically brilliant hues.
3. Sizes
There are no standardized sizes for toilet rugs, so you will come across a wide range of sizes across different brands. Most of them, however, come in size 20″ x 31″, which can be just the right size for most passages leading into conventional shower spaces.
If your washroom is large, you may want to go for a bigger rug or even choose a bathroom runner instead.
Runners tend to be longer and larger and can be a great choice if the floor space is large. They will conceal the whole or a bigger part of the floor.
4. Washing care
Because these rugs will be installed in humid and sometimes hot conditions, they will progressively end up messy enough to require a lengthy scrub after a few months.
Just a few rugs can be effectively cleaned and dried with laundry soap or detergent without creating a stench in the next few weeks. While others need to be washed in consideration of several factors or even drip-dried.
Last words
It is hard to imagine any home to have a clean and well-used bathroom without some kind of mat or rug installed, especially by the shower / tub and under the washing sink.
Do people actually get out of their shower and just stand there dripping onto the tiled floors?
As for the toilet and sink areas, even a simple washing of your hands can leave noticeable splashes of water all over on the place.
The trick here is to buy a product with the right style, thickness, size and color. For the shower and tub area, removing your rug after every use seems as something standard to do especially if you expect guests to use that bathroom.
For a powder room or guest bath, there is nothing wrong with leaving a clean attractive rug under the sink area.
Most of us would rather throw a mat or rug in the washer than sneak back into the guest bathroom to wipe down those pools of water off the floor.
The bath in question above tend to be particularly difficult for mat or rug placement because of its diminutive size.
You should probably never put a rug by your toilet. That’s almost gross.
Why wouldn’t you try out one of those bath mats we see in hotels? They look gorgeous and can work be wonderful in the tub area.
The best thing is they can easily be rolled and placed away from sight when not in use.
You can as well choose to reposition the door if possible to make it open OUT rather than into the bathroom.
This way, the bathroom will start to look a bit bigger and more open, permitting you to fit a larger rug of larger thickness – thick microfiber rugs absorbs water better than slim ones.