Should I fully tile my bathroom or partly tile it?
The short answer
Tile where the water goes — the shower enclosure, above the bath, behind the basin — and that's non-negotiable. Beyond that it's taste and budget. Full tiling looks seamless and wipes clean but costs more and can feel cold and echoey; part tiling with good moisture-resistant paint above is cheaper, warmer, and far easier to change your mind about later.
The functional requirement is narrow: the wet zones must be properly tiled and, more importantly, properly waterproofed behind the tiles. Everything past that is decoration, and it's worth being honest about which is which — a beautifully tiled wall over a badly tarnished tanking job is a leak waiting to happen.
The case for full tiling is the wipe-clean surface and the seamless look, and in a small en-suite that gets steamy it can genuinely be the practical choice. The case against is cost, and the fact that a fully tiled room is a hard, sound-reflective box that some people find cold.
Part tiling ages more flexibly. Paint above the tile line can be redone in an afternoon when you tire of it; a full wall of tile is a demolition job.
Whichever way you go, budget properly for the waterproofing behind the shower. It's invisible, it's the part nobody boasts about, and it's the part that decides whether you're re-doing this room in eight years.
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