Im probably gonna end up buying ceramic floor tiles from one or more of the big 3 home improvment stores. Any reputable bands I should look for? Ive heard that I should go to an actual tile and stone place rather than one of the big stores. I cant see why. All the ceramic stuff seems to be the same from place to place. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

What's in a brand? Once it is laid, who is gonna know if it was Yves St Laurent or Home Depot? Big stores are fine. You need to look at what they have and make a decision based on whether or not you can get trim pieces to match, how many boxes of the same dye lot they have in stock. Will it be enough for your job? Now if you are into a particular color or design, it may take more looking to find your exact match.
I may be cheap, but I have the same tan colored tile in our two bathrooms and kitchen, plus I have it in two bathrooms at our weekend rental cabin, including an entire shower enclosure (4'x8'). I bought it at big orange for 54 cents a square foot . Hey, I got $30 in my kitchen tile.

 

We buy our tiles on clearance - the last batch was a pallet and a half for 50¢/ft².

 

My second tile job in my house was installing a custom tile countertop in the kitchen. My wife selected special order tile with hand decorated accents and specialty pieces from a tile store. To be honest I can't remember the cost but it wasn't cheap. IIRC it was about half the cost of granite at the time. It was almost painful to demo the tile as part of a kitchen reno.

Now I buy tile at a big box and I buy the cheapest I can get that fits the color scheme we want. I also buy extra because you can't always rely on that particular tile being available in the future.

Incidentally, the countertop tile was set in mastic on top of plywood - as recommended by the guy in the tile store. It lasted 15 years without a problem and had we not renovated the kitchen I am 100% confident that it would still be in great shape.