Tiling walls alone is definately a weekend thing, rarely will it take less than 48hours to tile a decent size/amount of walls, this includes grouting and drying time of course. Following this blog couldn’t make tiling much easier and with the array of patterned and textured tiles available today the only difficult part will be choosing the tile style. To begin with tiling walls has the approximate budget of £150, however there are many variables involved such as; Tile style, amount of tiles needed, that this can either drive costs up or down.

You can find out how many tiles you will need by measuring the area of the space you wish to tile. Measure the length and the width, add these two numbers together and then divide this by the length and width of a sungle tile; this number is the amount of tiles you will need. Allow an extra 10% of tiles ontop of this number for cuttings and wastage. First you must create a tile guage, a piece of wood that goes near where you are going to lay the tiles so that you may mark out and plan tile positions before laying them. This will need to be a piece of wood that stretches the length and then the width of the area that needs to be tiled.

Nail a gauage to the bottom of the wall to be used as a guide, do not hammer the nails in fully; they will need to be removed later. Check that the guage is in-line with a spirit level. Do the same again for a guage against the left hand side of the wall, you can then use these two guages to mark out the positions of tiles using the corner it creates as the corner of a planned tile. This is the time when you need to cut tiles that you will need to place into smaller positions than your whole tiles can fit into. For the actually attatchment of the tiles to the walls you will need tile adhesive, this can be bought from stores such as B&Q at anything from £5 to £15 depending on what sort you decide to buy.
Work outwards and upwards from the corner that the guages create, using a notched spreaded to spread the adhesive in level and even spreads over about half a square meter of the wall. Of course waterproof adhesive must be used around anything that relases water, such as sinks or showers and use a more ‘flexible’ adhesive for surfaces that may move a little for example, plywood panelling around a bath.

Now it is time to begin actually placing the tiles onto the wall, first use the whole tiles as the cut tiles will be placed in afterwards. Place the tiles firmly upon the adhesive and use soft movements to glide the tiles across the adhesive into the correct position. Place the first tile into the corner that the guages create and place the next tiles next to it and so on, leaving small gaps to allow for grouting. Once you have finished the first row, place a tile above the first one of the first row to begin creating a second row, making sure that the tiles are flat to the walla as well as relative to the other tiles.
You now have a good foundation to continue your tiling, working in half metere squares as to make sure your adhesive doesn’t dry before you are able to tile it. Continue to work in the same fashion until you have filled as many areas as you can with whole tiles, continually working in half metere squares. When tiling above a window, any tiles that you have cut and placed above the window will have nothing underneath them to stop them slipping. Use masking tape to attach them to a previously fixed tile to hold them in place until the adhesive dries.

Remove the guages and fill in the areas that require cut tiles. A tile cutter is required to cut tiles properly, use a tile cutting jig to cut tiles straight and they can ever create curved and shaped cuts, whatever is required. Once you have attacthed all your cut tiles as well as your whole tiles it is time for grouting. Wipe off any extra adhesive and leave all the tiles to semi dry, now you can grout* the tiles with a squeegee working small areas each time to avoid drying before it is in place. Work the grout* in every direction pushing the grout into all the joints, use a piece of dowel to smooth the grout* once in joints.

Now you can finish, use a damp sponge to wipe away all excess grout* before it is able to set indefinately. Once the surface has dried polish it with a dry cloth to give it that nice proffesional finish. I hope you found this blog simple and easy to follow.

Happy Tiling!

* Grout is another word for adhesive when moving it around in its semi dry form so that you are able to create a nicer looking adhesive within all the tiles.