First Time tiling - Help me do it right (Polished Porcelain Tiles)

[radiocaf]

Great advice everyone, although it's a little too late to not do the tiles I have already (I've dropped the money on them and they are sitting waiting to be put on the wall.)

I have got an experienced (not professional) tiler with me, and so far we have done one wall around a door and it's looking brilliant.

Kilty55: The current state is we have two and a half bare walls, the rest need old tiles removing and plastering where we damage the existing plaster. So far we haven't caused much damage, so have been able to scrape/sand back the old adhesive and tile. I hope that answers your question.

 

[kilty55]

mind and put pics up of your finsihed result radio

 

[radiocaf]

mind and put pics up of your finsihed result radio

Sure, I will. You can all laugh at my first attempt. I can sit here thinking I've done an amazing job and you're all in a private thread pointing out all the flaws 😉 lol.

But yeah, I will definitely get some up once done.

 

[charlie1]

Hi radocaf, if ever there was a tile to sort the men out from the boys, its polished porcelain, if you get this wrong it will show up like a sore thumb and the most evil part about it is, its really hard to tell how the job is going untill the end when you have grouted and turn on the lights! There is a saying in life, worry about the big things and the small things will take care of themselves... No1 issue, lippage, no 2 issue flatness, make sure you pay attention to these two issues! Why did you not do all the prep work before hand rather than addressing as you go? Sounds messy? Good luck

 

[BuilderMCR]

What are the walls like? If they're bad might be worth dot and dabbing them before you tile.

 

[destroyer2813]

^^ Might be a bit late for that seen as he"s already done one wall

 

[radiocaf]

Hi radocaf, if ever there was a tile to sort the men out from the boys, its polished porcelain, if you get this wrong it will show up like a sore thumb and the most evil part about it is, its really hard to tell how the job is going untill the end when you have grouted and turn on the lights! There is a saying in life, worry about the big things and the small things will take care of themselves... No1 issue, lippage, no 2 issue flatness, make sure you pay attention to these two issues! Why did you not do all the prep work before hand rather than addressing as you go? Sounds messy? Good luck

Yep, in at the deep end. Too late to turn back.

So far it looks alright, but that's before grouting.

Lippage is my main concern, so I'm glad I'm doing that right. I have found one wall has "bubbled" out a bit (it's not perfectly flat) and the only way I can think of to combat it is to build up the adhesive to keep the lippage as refined as possible and keep them nice and level and flat. It's a slow process but I'm getting there. It'll be nice for it to turn out at least decent, but I'm not expecting much, anything better than a complete disaster is a bonus, but I am optimistic after getting one wall full of adhered but not grouted tiles.

 

[radiocaf]

Oh and my pre-prep consisted of leveling and measuring walls, marking where each tile will go, etc. I think it's all standard stuff, but I'm not sure what dot and dabbing is.

 

[White Room]

What are the walls like? If they're bad might be worth dot and dabbing them before you tile.

I take it you mean dot and dab plasterboard.....

 

[radiocaf]

Well we are certainly getting there slowly. we have one and a half walls done,and this is the current state of the tiles. I haven't had much of a problem with lipping or bulging of the walls, which I though was going to be a major issue.

Here's where we are at at the moment. To the left of the wall you see is the first wall we did, which has the door on it. Once we complete this wall, we are going to clean, grout and seal all these. The other two walls will be done after, but all these have the Toilet (as you can see) and the Shower and everything on them, so the plan is to tile them one by one (tile the toilet, grout and seal, plumb in the new toilet, move on to sink, etc...)