you want to see how to backsplash i'll teach you right now
really it's more of me taking a deep breath because it's really hard to tile
and do a youtube video because i'm pretty stressed
oh hey good to see you it's actually a perfect time that you're here because i'm just about to
do this backsplash above this little pantry area what a perfect opportunity to show you exactly
how to tile so stick with me and i'm going to show you how to do it where to start right it
can be a little complicated trying to figure out where to start this is a fairly simple rectangle
but the very first place to start is you want to map out your tiles you want to figure out
how many tiles you need to go across horizontally and how many tiles you need to go up vertically
the last thing you want to happen is to end up with slivers on either sides
first check it horizontally i've laid out five tiles here and i can see that just five tiles
with a little bit of spacing is going to work out perfectly now i might need to cut these
tiles as they go up it might narrow off just a little bit as it goes up but as long as i end up
with nice big pieces on the side and it's nice and centered it'll be good but the other thing
we have to worry about is the height of this and we want to make sure just like the side
that you don't end up with a sliver up top so i've taken the measurement which is 85 and a half
and i've translated it onto the ground over here follow me so i've laid out enough tiles on the
ground to reach 85 and a half inches but i want to assume now that i'm starting with a full tile
on the countertop so if i put my tape measure here at the bottom of the full tile i want to
see where 85 and a half nets out so 85 and a half takes us right up here which is going to be a nice
look like i said before the last thing you want to have happen is that that last tile ends up
with a little sliver which can just look sloppy and messy and there are ways to correct that if
you end up with a sliver what you might want to do is start with half a tile down at the bottom
to even that gap but in this case we're going to be fine so let's move on to step two
okay now that we know that our tile layout is going to work what we're going to do is we've
got to set that bottom line we want to set our first tiles along the bottom and making sure that
that's perfectly level the last thing you want to do is just rely on other surfaces to be plumb
and level you want to make sure the base of the tile that you're setting the very first time you
set it is nice and level and in the right spot so i've mapped out where the center of the wall
is and then it mapped out also on the wall where the two sides of the center tile will end up so
then from there i've set a laser line if you don't have a laser level you can also just run
a level and scribe it with a pencil i've lined up the laser with that edge so that i know with some
tiling going up that i'm staying nice and true to that laser line and i'm staying nice and straight
so we're almost ready to get putting some mud on the wall here let me show you how to do that again
i know it can seem complicated which travel to use which thinset to use but just for backsplashers
let's keep it pretty simple here a backsplash is not a shower so you can use these pre-mixed
mastic type mortars you don't have to worry about mixing up thinset these pre-mixed ones come right
out of the bucket at home depot that's going to be your easiest bet when you're not dealing in wet
locations it's just an adhesive it's just sticking up ceramic to the wall you'll be fine with this
stuff now for the trowels you've got different size trowels you've got v-notch trowels you got
square notch trowels i know it's complicated again but it could just be a little trial and error
start small work your way up these bigger square notch trowels those are for large format tiles and
the little tiny v-notch ones could be for little mosaics and stuff like that that you don't want
the thinset to ooze out in the grout joints in our case here we're just going to use a small trowel
that's got a quarter inch notch and it should be fine for us in this case so let's get going
before you get started an important thing to think about is just keeping your work area clean
i've already gone around and i've taped off the perimeter of this whole work area here i've also
put some plastic down over top of the countertop keep a sponge with you sponge in water just keep
cleaning your tools off keep cleaning the areas before they harden if you just spend a little
extra time keeping things clean it'll be a much less stressful ordeal and you'll have a lot more
fun doing it so we're all ready to get going here i'm going to pull up my adhesive and since i set
the laser here i know that for that first row of tile all i really need to do is put enough
adhesive on this bottom row i don't need to start laying it on the whole wall so it can all get dry
i'm just going to work in small spaces that is manageable and something that you can get done
in about 15 minutes so start slowly and then work up from there you don't need to rush this
have fun with it
okay you ready get some on the wall
you want to make sure you get enough adhesive that you're getting full solid marks you can
see why i've taped off the walls the last thing you want to do is scratch the cabinetry
when i push these tiles on here there's going to be a bit of ooze out along the side
so what i don't want to have happen is i'm going to wipe along the bottom here because what i don't
want is the adhesive to ooze out the bottom and get trapped between the tile because i'll never
be able to grout it or silicone it you want to keep all the grout joints nice and clean
these are not the biggest size ceramic tiles so if you are working with bigger tiles you might
find you need to back butter which means putting more adhesive on the back of the stone as well
what you should be doing is as you stick this stone on is maybe take one or two of them off
just make sure you're getting enough coverage on the back so it doesn't need to be a ton because
it is just a backsplash but if you feel like you're not getting enough adhesive maybe you need
a bigger notch trowel or maybe you need to back butter the tiles but we're using a pretty large
notch here for such a small tile so we'll be fine in this case to just stick it right into the wall
it's really hard to see here but even though these tiles look like they're perfectly symmetrical a
lot of the times we'll have little arrows on the back i don't know why but we just need to make
sure that we lay them in that orientation i guess because there's imperfections and they want to
make sure everything's in the right orientation so try to pay attention to that if there's an arrow
try to keep them all in the same direction you might find that it looks a little wacky
but in this case i'm gonna do them all pointing out so here goes the first piece i've got my laser
line still set up that's the edge of the tile i'm gonna put it down on the countertop here
line it up and i'm just gonna wiggle it into place here i'm just going to make it so that
that laser line just grazes the edge making sure that i'm staying nice and level across the top
really all there is to it i'm going to get my next tile i'm going to point it
up as well too i'm gonna sit it up next to it off the countertop and push it on
in this case these tiles have a little bit of a built-in spacer to them so when you
butt them up next to each other there's about a 30 second of an inch right there and that's
something that we want in this case we don't want a joint any bigger than that so we don't need to
a lot of the times when you're using subway tile or any other type of tile is you'll have
either a 16th spacer or an eight spacer you can buy these all the way up to 160 fourths or you
can get them all the way up to half inch but what you're then going to need to do if you are
doing those spacers is between every single tile you need to put the spacer between them
so you would push the spacer in between here which would separate the tiles a little bit
leaving you more room for grout and that's just a personal preference a lot of the time
some tiles have certain specifications for how far they want to be apart
do a bit of research both aesthetically and functionally for your tile and make sure that
you're using the right spacer now along the bottom here these two surfaces move independently the
countertop and the drywall i want to make sure i leave a little bit of a gap at the bottom here
between the countertop and the wall along the bottom i want to have that be a little bit of
a bigger gap so i'm going to slip in a 16th spacer along the bottom so that i can really
get the flexible sealant in there and we don't get any cracking between the countertop and the wall
so i put one here but you'll see along the bottom i'm going to do it all the way across
okay the first row is in you're just going to want to make sure all those tiles are nice and set run
your hands across the joints make sure there's no lippage which is when there's different levels of
the tile you want to make sure everything's nice and flat and then check out that laser
across the top make sure it's sitting nice and level if you don't have a laser level again you
can just use a level on top of there now just because we want to keep things nice and clean if
you want to make sure everything's good and set this is what's going to set the basics for this
whole wall so if you want you can go ahead and you can wipe off all the mortar that's on there
put it back in the bucket sponge off the top now that's all curing you can take a deep breath
and you can get onto row two really it's more of me taking a deep breath because it's really
hard to tile and uh and do a youtube video because i'm pretty stressed out
i know what you're thinking holy how am i going to tile that there's an outlet in the way
well you're screwed if you don't know what let's be honest we're going to show you a couple ways
to do this um in this case we've mapped out the tile and we've mapped out the electrical location
so that we don't need to cut out a perfect square in this tile which you could do with a grinder or
a wet saw we've mapped it out so that this piece this outlet cover is going to slip down over top
of that tile so all we have to do now is cut out a u of this tile so that it slips out over the
top of this and reveals the outlet so i'm going to try to make this not so complicated the first
thing we need to do is map out what we need to cut out this is the tile i'm going to use and
i'm going to show you how to mark out exactly what to do without a tape measure so i'm going to hold
the tile where it's roughly going to be sitting on the wall so it's going to be up against the
wall here and you can start to see the outlet protruding underneath what i'm going to do is
since the outlet cover does extend well beyond i'm not going to cut it too close but i want to cut it
close enough that i'm going to guarantee that i'm going to have coverage with the plate afterwards
so i want to mark just over here on one side of the outlet and then i'm going to go on to the
other side and i'm going to mark the same spot just roughly at the outlet box there that yellow
so i've got both marked there now i'm going to hold it down and i'm going to put it over here
where it's roughly going to be sitting on the tile on the next row and i'm going to mark off
where i need to cut this to again it's going to go about this far what's tricky about outlets is that
when this plate goes on over top you don't just have to have the tile tucked in underneath there
you have to create a little notch so that the screw for the outlet plate can get into this
hole here so when i cut this across here i'm also going to have to make a nice little relief cut so
that the screw can go through there if you don't do that there are tricks you can cut the screws so
that they fit perfectly but we're going to show you the best case scenario for how to make it
as best as possible so now i've got my marks on the bottom and i've got my mark along the side
so if i flip it over onto the back side here what i'm going to do is i'm going to trace this line
across here i'm going to take this mark here that's the top mark the vertical mark and i'm
going to trace it across the front of the back i've got my two marks down here for the outlet
the itself mark there
you can see what i've created there is exactly the part that i want to cut out
so this area here will get cut out it will slip like this over top of the outlet we'll pull the
outlet through and stick it in let me show you how to cut it we've got our tile out here
and like i said inside this little rectangle is exactly what we're trying to cut out
so the easiest way to do that without having all the tools in the world so what i'm going to do
is i'm going to cut with the grinder down both of these channels here and then i'm going to
finish it by going across with the snap and i'm going to snap it off so let me show you how
insert outlet here
you want to make sure the power's off on your outlets before you do any of this work
shut the breaker off so that there's no risk of getting hurt pull that lid out
and what you want is for those ears
to wrap around this underneath what you'll see is when you put it on i need to create
a nice notch for that hole to be able to come in so the center of it
and then i want to cut a release and have room for the outlet plate to go on
so now we're ready for the second row
again i'm just going to wipe off this bottom lip here
back behind that piece to make sure it's nice and stiff
and then now we can put our pieces
when you put your wall plate on obviously all that stuff's covered
but that's the trickiest part of this whole backsplash so now what we're gonna do is we're
just gonna repeat the process all the way up and there's no more cuts until we reach the top
watch how i do it and i'll meet you back when i get to the top
so
i told you to meet me when i was at the top and here we are i've done the whole backsplash it only
took about half an hour because we mapped it out so perfectly but now we have to cut the top pieces
and i'm going to show you a really easy way to do that so that row here what you're going to do
is essentially we need a piece that's about this big right but what i don't want to do is mark it
on the face and then have my cut edge touching the bottom here i want to have my cut edge up at the
top so i can cover it with silicone or grout if i need to and what we have to be concerned about
is that the ceilings any ceiling new houses old houses often aren't perfectly level so your tiles
can come in perfectly level but you might end up with a little bit of a wedge so in order to mark
it perfectly so that you get the same slope as the ceiling i'm going to show you a trick
if you take your tile and you flip it onto its back and you hold it up to the ceiling in the spot
and what you're going to want to do is mark the side one side here and then you're going
to go the other side and you're going to mark where the tile is over here
then when i connect those two dots from here to here i'll take this piece here that we cut off
flip it upside down and that'll be your cut edge that'll be the perfect height so let me show you
how to cut it i'll line up my mark there put the mark there in the mark there score i get a nice
and then it should snap now what we're left with
is a perfect piece but don't throw this away i can use the other side for the next piece
before i put any adhesive on there i just like to make sure these fit but i know it will
perfect
and take that tape off just to make sure no glue
hardens against the wall i'm gonna give it a good clean right now
well there you have it backsplash not that hard not that easy
but you can do it give it a shot watch our video
try it out you never know you might need a tool you might need a friend
but you'll only get better at it and i promise you i'm not that great so good luck
come on files
give it a try you might be surprised how much skill you have
i've got something online scratching give it a try