How to Cut Tile Around a Toilet?

If DIY tasks like replacing a toilet and installing a tile floor are within your skill set, then you can also handle tiling around a toilet. Cutting tiles to fit neatly around the base of an installed toilet requires careful template-making and tile-nipping, however, so patience and precision are critical.

In most cases, you’ll have more room for error if you remove the toilet, trace and cut one or multiple tiles to fit around the toilet flange, and then reinstall or replace the old toilet. For instance, imagine that you have a toilet with an angular base that will necessitate cutting a triangular section away from one of the corners of one of your tiles.

You’d cut the parallel slits into that same area of the corresponding sheet of paper, with a little extra “wiggle room” added to your cuts. Lay each sheet into place and crease the slits along the toilet base. One at a time, lay the sheets of paper down where their corresponding tiles will go, remembering to account for spacing between tiles due to grout lines. The slits will fan up and over the installed toilet’s base.

Use your finger to press a crease into each slit—one at a time—where the subfloor meets the toilet base. When you’re done, you’ll have created an accurate template for that tile. Then you can move onto the next sheet of paper. To account for future grout lines, utilize the same plastic spacers that you use when permanently setting the tiles in place.

Cut the slits along the traced lines and dry-fit the sheets. Once you’ve creased all the sheets of paper, take your scissors and cut carefully along the crease lines. Then, lay all these cut sheets of paper down around the toilet (again, accounting for grout lines) and make sure they fit snugly against the toilet base.