Hey friends,

I've run low on the larger porcelain tile. Being a large tile I ordered 13% more than the square meterage (10% usually recommended) as I knew there would be a fair amount of unusable offcuts but I hadn't counted on having just over half a tile on both the top and bottom of all my walls. I've got loads of just-under-half tiles!

There's a delivery charge so before I re-order I want to ensure I have enough of my other tile - this white rectangular ceramic tile we're using for our feature wall.

The main reason why we have a feature wall is because lining up the big grey tile on a 4th wall with niches and a mirror to think about would be too much, but maybe it will look good too.

The shape of this tile gave me so many style options to choose from and I tried a couple of them including brick-bond and double-herringbone to see what worked. Eventually I settled on herringbone as a fun challenge 🙄.

If Phil and Kirsty had a tiling show it would be called Layout, Layout, Layout - it's that fundamental to a good looking tile job. To get mine I had to lay them out on the floor of the garage to get a sense of where the grout lines would land.

The best overall layout was to have the middle of a chevron start not in the middle of the wall (which would be normal way of doing things) but in the middle of the sink/niche/mirror. I thought this would look good as the sink is directly in front of the door and the first thing you see.

Critically, this is the centre line:

To get started I fastened a level batten to the wall and laid the first tile at 45 degrees using a new tool: a speed square.

Somehow I've survived without one until now but with so many 45s to cut it was a no brainer.

Once the first tile was in I could go right across the wall and after the adhesive had set, remove the batten.

To get my practice in, I went downward first as most of this tile will be behind the sink. You can install the sink first and tile up to it but what if you change to a different shape or size sink in the future? Best to tile behind I think.

I've gone back to the pink-bagged adhesive as the other one absolutely does not have the pot life it claims. This one lasts for ages. I've also learnt a couple more tricks. First, comb in a perpendicular direction to the longest side of the tile as this makes it easier to squeeze the air out. Second, wipe away adhesive along the green lines. This way much less pushes up through your grout lines.

While this tile doesn't need back-buttering, I'm still doing for it for extra goodness.

I re-measured the depth of the shower outlets and mirror and decided to use my 6x6mm notched trowel I used for the UFH membrane.

Next were the niches. It's important that the bottom of the niches are sloped forwards so water doesn't pool and seep into your grout. You can do this when you make the niches but I just added more adhesive on the back than the front. Obviously not too sloped so you can't place bottles on it without them falling off. Duh.

You'll remember I intended to mitre the tile for a neat finish. To do so would mean the face of the tile would have to overlap the edge of the niches and I'd be left with a gap behind that I'd have to fill in. On balance I decided that using trim and having only one tile on the sides of the recesses was the better option. No tile cutting required, but the back of the niches did need a thicker layer of adhesive to compensate.

I went for a 'straight' trim (10mm, matt white). You can make a feature of it by facing it outward but I'm looking to minimise its appearance so orientated it the other way so it appears as a thin line.

From the examples I've seen, extending the herringbone pattern on the sides doesn't always look good but I do like the back of the niche to match and line up. Yeh, I did think about a mosaic but choosing two tiles was hard enough.

The best way I could think of doing this was to tile around the niche and then use a laser level to find where the corners of the niche tile should align with (2 pics up).

I'm now onto the other niches. It's by no means perfect but you can imagine how difficult some of these tiles are to measure and cut. The tiles aren't rectified (squared up after manufacturing) like the grey tile are so that adds complexity too. Don't let me put you off herringbone though, it's pretty simple, especially if you have a flat wall.

A word on the cutting. I had expected this ceramic tile, being softer, would be simple to cut on the tile snapper. Nope, it breaks in the wrong place every time. I don't know why. It even happens on straight cuts 🤷‍♂️.

My wet tile cutter chips the edges terribly. Okay for butting up to another wall, floor or ceiling where it will be hidden by sealant but not good enough for where the tile meets my niches.

So while I did ponder buying a premium wet saw I instead reduced my budget by 100 X and purchased this fantastic little £10 blade for my angle grinder.

The great thing about it is the sides are diamond ribbed so you can adjust your cut easily or file edges. It creates very clean cuts, but it is dusty. I can't say I've found THE method of cutting tile yet.

I guess there's time as I've still got a fair bit to go with both tiles. I'm running out of tiling related titles for these newsletters!

👋

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