The Knowledge of Tile a Bathroom Floor
Tiling your own bathroom floor can be a satisfying and cost-effective home repair project if you get the correct materials and plan your project in advance. With a little planning, anyone can do it. Keep reading to learn to prepare the foundation, lay the tile, and grout your New Slate Tiles so it will last for many years to come. Get tiling!
Prepare the floor. Make sure the surface you’re going to wood marble tile is swept and clean of any debris, especially if you’re in the middle of more major renovations or construction. Make certain the existing wood floor is flat, solid, and well bonded to the sub-floor. The rustic floor and subfloor together should be at least 1-1/8″ thick.
Mix a batch of thin-set mortar. Follow the manufacturer directions, mixing the appropriate amount of water with the mortar in a bucket. The mortar should be thick, a similar consistency to mud, but not so thick that is doesn’t fall off a trowel. Don’t mix more thin-set than you can use within an hour, or it will begin to dry out. Spread a layer of thin-set on the sub-floor with the notched trowel. Spread the mortar quickly, but also evenly. Use firm sweeping motions with the trowel.
Cut the cement board to fit the space. If you want to reinforce the floor with cement board, score it with a utility knife before laying it over the thin-set mortar. Pound in roofing nails along the edge to secure the backer board to the floor. Continue until the floor is covered and apply a thin layer of thin-set mortar over the joints. Wait until the next day to begin laying cloud tile. In the meantime, you can prepare the reference lines to make sure the tile will be laid evenly.
Establish a straight vertical and horizontal reference line from the center of the room. If you simply start laying tile along a crooked wall, it will look really crooked by the time you reach the opposite wall, so you need to use a mason’s chalk line (a piece of string covered with chalk dust that you can snap into place) to establish easily-removable reference lines.
Identify the most visible wall when you walk into the room. This is the wall with the longest area of continuous spots tile. Determine a 90-degree angle from that wall, using a square, and snap a chalk line across the room. Use the square again to mark a perfect 90-degree angle from that chalk line and snap another chalk line that’s perpendicular to the first one. Now you have two intersecting chalk lines as a reference to lay the first tile.
