12-27-2019, 03:42 PM
I tiled the laundry room about a month ago and thought I would pass on a couple tips.
Layout - measure carefully and do the layout on the computer (I used Sketchup 2017). My room was small (11x12) but complex with intruding cabinets on two walls. Made it easy to adjust my tile layout to minimize the amount of cutting required and easy to create a cut-list showing what tiles needed to be cut to fit where. Also gave me a super-precise view of the qty of materials I needed.
Cutting tiles - I have a 15+ year old Harbor Freight sliding tray wet saw designed for 12-14" tiles. I slapped a plywood overlay table on top and I was able to rip 24" porcelain tiles. Score one for the budget.
Edging tiles - Decided to do a tile baseboard. I bought a $43 dollar diamond bullnose blade and made my own bullnose tile out of regular floor tile. Took some finessing to get an even bullnose profile cut into the tile, but score another one for the budget.
Mortar - buy mortar that's close in color to your grout. Because it's no fun discovering dark mortar peeking through your light color grout.
Installing tiles - bought an off-brand tile levelling system (Ogori) from Amazon. Wedges and clips. Highly recommended for large format tiles and waaay better and less money than the QEP LASH system - the wedges and clips are much bigger making them easy to handle. The tool for setting the wedges is worth the money ($13).
Grouting - I used PowerGrout for stain resistance. Mixes very dry. Work in small batches to avoid the grout setting up before you have it placed.
Clean-up - a 'no scratch' scouring pad works great for removing dried mortar and grout from the tiles.
-Mark
Layout - measure carefully and do the layout on the computer (I used Sketchup 2017). My room was small (11x12) but complex with intruding cabinets on two walls. Made it easy to adjust my tile layout to minimize the amount of cutting required and easy to create a cut-list showing what tiles needed to be cut to fit where. Also gave me a super-precise view of the qty of materials I needed.
Cutting tiles - I have a 15+ year old Harbor Freight sliding tray wet saw designed for 12-14" tiles. I slapped a plywood overlay table on top and I was able to rip 24" porcelain tiles. Score one for the budget.
Edging tiles - Decided to do a tile baseboard. I bought a $43 dollar diamond bullnose blade and made my own bullnose tile out of regular floor tile. Took some finessing to get an even bullnose profile cut into the tile, but score another one for the budget.
Mortar - buy mortar that's close in color to your grout. Because it's no fun discovering dark mortar peeking through your light color grout.
Installing tiles - bought an off-brand tile levelling system (Ogori) from Amazon. Wedges and clips. Highly recommended for large format tiles and waaay better and less money than the QEP LASH system - the wedges and clips are much bigger making them easy to handle. The tool for setting the wedges is worth the money ($13).
Grouting - I used PowerGrout for stain resistance. Mixes very dry. Work in small batches to avoid the grout setting up before you have it placed.
Clean-up - a 'no scratch' scouring pad works great for removing dried mortar and grout from the tiles.
-Mark
If I had a signature, this wouldn't be it.
