Hey friends,

Box spanners! That's what my mystery tools from last time are. Used for getting into tight spaces for things like spark plugs or under taps.

I couldn't reply to everyone so to make it fair, I replied to no one. But thank you. They sound useful so I'll put them in with my big box of seen-better-days spanners.

*shakes head*

For today's newsletter I thought I'd try weaving in what I've been up to with a sort-of guide to tiling. Here are the topics:

• Laying out
• Spacer size
• Levelling
• Adhesive
• Trowel Notch Size
• Cutting
• External Corners

Laying Out

The good news is the bathroom tiling is coming along nicely. The bad news is I couldn't have made it much more difficult for myself.

I lean on Abi for the finishing details of a room as I'm no good at it. It's a frustrating handicap but the upside is I can't be held accountable if it ends up looking like crap. For our main tile we've chosen a 600x600mm porcelain type. My hope is it won't look dated in 10 years' time and will achieve a slick and modern look - hopefully more upscale hotel than public lavatory.

Generally, to lay out you'd strike two perpendicular centre lines and orientate your tiles in a quadrant around where they intersect. If that leaves small slivers at either edge then you'd move the middle of your tile over the centre line/s.

The other rules you can follow might be having a full tile in the doorway or centring around a window or other object. But really the main thing is not to have any slivers anywhere.

Because we're using the same tile on both the floor and 3 of the walls, how ever I lay it out on the floor decides the vertical grout lines up the walls. There are also two semi-separate floor areas of the bathroom so while it would have been nice to have had 3 good sized tiles from the left wall to the bath I had to accommodate 2 lines of smaller tiles either side. I took some solace in that the middle line running from door to sink lines up perfectly with the centre of the mirror.

My bathroom isn't square either. The left and right wall get wider towards the door. This is an issue when you are trying to line up wall and floor grout lines.

Black: room outline

Green: tiles

Where the floor tile meets the wall, the cut (in orange) is longer than the edge of the tile so when you come to do your wall tile and hope the grout lines meet up, they don't. With this in mind I decided to not line the tile up with either wall and divided the angle in two (as above) to lessen them. If we'd used a smaller tile this wouldn't be such an issue as I could have made fine adjustments to the vertical grout lines every 10cm, say, rather than every 60cm.

The other thing is you would usually tile the walls first so as not to risk dropping a wall tile on to your floor tiles but as we're using the same tile I needed the lines clearly set out on the floor first plus I needed to get the heating cable covered up.

To sum up, if you want to make things easier:

• choose smaller tiles
• have different tiles on your walls and floor that don't need lining up.
• go with easy to cut ceramic on the walls and save the harder wearing porcelain tiles for the floor

Spacer size

Do you remember on our last hol I was admiring the lack of grout lines in the AirBnB? Technically you don't need any spacers between tile especially if you're laying it on concrete which should have virtually no movement. However if you get a cracked tile, a lack of grout lines make it more difficult to remove and replace without disturbing its neighbours.

There are British Standards to consider. A minimum of 2mm on walls and 3mm on floors. It's larger for floors because there's more movement and the larger grout lines prevent the tiles from cracking if the floor contracts. As we're using the same tile on both the walls and floor it makes sense to be consistent. I've gone for a 2mm spacing, disregarding BS because:

• I feel I've made a very sturdy floor which shouldn't move much (remember the foaming glue I used in the tongue and groove) plus I've used a decoupling membrane which should allow the joists/chipboard to move without affecting the tile.
• Despite being rectified, tiles are never totally square so you usually end up with a bigger gap in some places than you started with.

Levelling

Last time I tiled I just used my long spirit level to make sure my walls were plumb and to take identify where any tile might be sticking out - i.e. lippage. You'll still need a level but for lippage there are a whole host of tile levellers on the market. Most common is the wedge system:

The spacers come with the kit and get snapped off, staying in the grout lines which didn't appeal to me. Also it's hard to find new spacers or different sized spacers without buying the wedges so it's often a one-use system.

Instead I chose these twist-lock ones which can be used with any sized spacer (well 1.5-3mm) and are fully removable so can be re-used. I really like them 🎯.

Just be mindful to remove them before your adhesive has fully set. If not, you can still get them out with a lot of wiggling.

For the size tile I'm using apparently a credit card's thickness of lippage is acceptable and I think I'm doing a bit better than that.

Adhesive

Ready-mixed adhesive is great. No mixing, lifting bags or dust. And no bucket clean up. It's just not that strong. Okay for small ceramic tiles.

Mix yourself adhesive is cementitious hence why it can't be pre-mixed otherwise it would cure in the tub. You can refine your search by using the following code:

C = Cementitious

1 = Normal characteristics

2 = Improved characterises (usually this means its flexibility, referring to additional polymers or such like to improve the performance of the adhesive)

T = Reduced slip (so how effective is the product’s grab, aka keeping the product on the substrate)

E = Extended opening times (how long can you work with the product)

F = Fast setting (how quickly after application can you grout your tiles)

S1 = Deformable (in conjunction with all the above features, this adhesive also has added flexibility, a deformability of between 2.5mm & 5mm)

S2 = Highly Deformable (this product has high flexibility, a deformability of above 5mm

My local tile shop stocks UltraTile so for the floor I used this which has a code of C2TES1:

The extended pot life (E) was helpful and I don't need the rapid setting (F). On the walls I've now moved on to:

Same code but with with 'fibre reinforced' bonding which supposedly makes it stronger still. It states it has a longer pot life but I'm getting the opposite. It's either because it's been warm or if the fibres are carbon, that tends to accelerate cementitious curing. Anyway, I don't have a lot to compare it with but it's cheaper than Mapei and seems to be doing the job.

To mix you need a mixing paddle which attaches to your drill.

It's a good idea to have a separate bucket of water on the side that you can spin and sit your paddle in so you don't have to clean it each time you make a batch of adhesive. This is the boy's favourite part :)

Trowel Notch Size

The notches of tiling trowels vary from around 2mm up to 20mm. How do you choose? There are two main factors.

The first is how flat your surface is. If it has old adhesive on it or other bits sticking out then a thicker layer of adhesive is required to smooth it out and therefore a larger notched trowel should be chosen.

The second factor is the size of tile you're using. Mosaic tiles require a thinner bed whereas the ones we're using need a thicker one.

They come in V, square and U shaped. V tends to be for very small tile but as far as I can tell you can use a square or U shaped notches interchangeably for larger tile. The curved profile of the ridges left behind in the adhesive is supposed to make it easier to push the tile down but the big difference is the thickness of the adhesive bed with square notches compressing down to half the ridge thickness and U-shaped down by 2/3rds. This is important for when you're installing your outlets so you know how far out they should protrude from the wall.

Because I'm using large tiles I've gone for a 12x12mm square notched trowel which will compress down to around 6mm. It might be a little more as I'm also back buttering the tiles for better contact.

This is the other tool you'll need - a jointing knife for spooning out adhesive and moving adhesive from one tool to the other. I use my 4" knife for all sorts of things - definitely worth a buy.

Cutting

For straight cuts I'm using this heavy duty cutter from Screwfix (I'd link but their website is down for maintenance). It gives amazingly clean cuts but if used on some cuts it will cause breakages which each time s £14 down the drain and the boy's in danger of learning a swear word.

For these or L-shape cuts I go to the wet saw, which a cheap jobby from Wickes. I've had to loosen the riving knife to wiggle left and right as needed but it does the job.

For some bits I've also used my angle grinder with a stone cutting blade which will come to the fore soon.

External Corners

My big plan was to do mitred corners:

The wall with the niches has been specifically designed for this. It's a very clean look and I thought might make for a fun challenge. On that wall we'll be using a smaller and cheaper ceramic tile but for the tile I'm using currently I've wimped out. So I had two other choices.

Trim. Most cheap trim is chrome/silver but as nothing in the bathroom will be chrome we'll need a colour matched trim. Genesis and Shluter are the leaders here. This is a Shluter Jolly trim sample:

Butt. Because I'm using porcelain which is 'through colour' I can use the factory edge as the finish.

I thought butting the tiles (with a grout gap) looked decent, would save £180 on trim and there's a little bevel on the tiles which will prevent chipping 🤞.

Pretty clean right? 😀

So two weeks into tiling I've done a 1/3, maybe 1/2 of the bathroom? Slow going but I am getting quicker 💪.

👋

A couple quick Screwfix tips. First, they're doing quite a few discounts (5/10% off) at the moment if you order through their phone app (I favour my desktop personally). The discounts get buried in the messages section. Second, I learnt they're doing away with the physical catalogue and writing product codes method in favour of a screen search where you send your order direct to the tills. So if you want to grab free pencils, now's the time.

I guess there's always Ikea.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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P.p.s. You can find all previous newsletters here.