Tiling a floor for the first time

honda boi

Hi all,

We moving house and want to tile a small room. It's about 7m2. It's by the back door and nothing on the surface so no real odd cuts to make.
Rectangular in shape, so I'm assuming not too difficult ( famous last words)
Any tips for it? It's a concrete floor.
Tiles are 61cm X 61cm.
Going to borrow a tile cutter.
Am I right in thinking, mark center of room vertical and horizontal , then work from the centre out on them lines?
Do a dry run to mark where the tiles will sit and make whatever cuts are needed, Going to clean the surface, apply grout , stick the tiles on, grout the joints.
All very simplified there.
Anything special to put over the floor before hand?
Thanks

ted1

honda boi wrote: »

Hi all,

We moving house and want to tile a small room. It's about 7m2. It's by the back door and nothing on the surface so no real odd cuts to make.
Rectangular in shape, so I'm assuming not too difficult ( famous last words)
Any tips for it? It's a concrete floor.
Tiles are 61cm X 61cm.
Going to borrow a tile cutter.
Am I right in thinking, mark center of room vertical and horizontal , then work from the centre out on them lines?
Do a dry run to mark where the tiles will sit and make whatever cuts are needed, Going to clean the surface, apply grout , stick the tiles on, grout the joints.
All very simplified there.
Anything special to put over the floor before hand?
Thanks

Check the level of the floor. You may need to add some self levelling compound.

hesker

Lay down tiles to see if it’s best to start at centre or at the wall with full tiles. You don’t want to end up with a thin sliver against any wall. Spend time doing this and it will pay dividends.

Don’t presume walls are square to each other. Check this out too.

Get your floor level before you start using self levelling compound if necessary. You’re using big tiles which makes this even more important.

There is a good tiling forum in uk which is worth reading through to see tips and critiques on jobs. Sorry can’t remember name of it... something like tilingforum

Ive done a good bit of diy tiling over the last year.
Skirting off will get a better finish and easier to tile .
I do all the full tiles then go back and do the cut tiles.
Scraping out any access adhesive from between tiles (as you go)will make the grouting easier and tidier.
Grouting & cleaning is the worst part of tiling imo .

mickdw

Ya set out your tiles in each direction to best avoid slivers of tile at any side.
You will either end up with tile sitting centre of the floor or with the tile joint sitting centre of floor - one or other will avoid a sliver of tile.
As said earlier, check for square etc to make sure you dont get caught out and do not attempt to let big tiles run with an uneven floor as it wont work.

Purgative

A couple of Utube clips here. As you'd imagine there are shedloads and like every other job, the trick is sorting the chaff from the wheat. Good Luck

jimmycrackcorm

If you are tiling around a shaped door frame then use a multitool to cut out the bottom section to insert the tile edge underneath.

salmocab

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

If you are tiling around a shaped door frame then use a multitool to cut out the bottom section to insert the tile edge underneath.

All hail multitools

honda boi

Thanks Everyone.
First thing il do is check the floor level
Easiest way is with a spirit level?