Tiles are a great option for flooring.
They're really durable, easy to clean,
and with a bit of attention to detail,
you can easily lay them yourself.
I'll show you had to lay some new floor tiles
and improve the look of your place.
We'll measure out the area we're going to tile,
drop down some tile and slate underlay,
and then map out the tile layout design over top.
Now if you are tiling in a wet area,
just make sure you call in a professional.
Now, there's loads of different shapes and sizes
of tiles you can choose.
I've decided to go with a 600 by 600 porcelain tile.
This is going to look absolutely brilliant down on our floor.
Now I've already ripped out the liner that was on the floor
here.
If you've got an older style house,
you might pay to get someone in just to check the floor out,
just to make sure that liner doesn't contain asbestos.
Now, if this was a concrete floor,
I'd just make sure there's no undulations, humps
and bumps in it.
You might want to grind it off.
Because I've got a timber floor, I've been underneath it.
I've checked it out.
Everything's nice and secure.
The floorboards are in great condition.
So the next step is to measure it up and start cutting
our tile and slate underlay.
So I've just draw myself a little map,
and I'm just going to take all the dimensions of the floor
down, so I can work out best how my sheets are
going to look on the floor.
Some cabinetry may not be aligned, so
make sure you measure the area thoroughly.
OK So it's 25, 30.
And it's about [INAUDIBLE] 30.
Now, this is our tile and slate underlay.
I'm going to use my little chart there
with all of our dimensions, and I'm
going to mark out the shape.
Now, one thing I will point out is,
I have allowed a 5 millimeter space from where
our boards finish up to our toekicks,
so it does fit in nice and easy.
Now, there's a couple of different ways
we can cut this board.
I could use the mighty angle grinder, which
is going to be a pretty fast sort of job,
but it's going to be very dusty and noisy.
But what I'm going to use is this Lindbergh's scoring knife.
These are dust free, nice and cheap, and easy to use.
So you just want to score this a few times so you're about half
the way through, and then just bend it over and snap it off.
OK.
I have scored there about half the way through,
so that should be just about ready for me to snip that off,
nice and easy.
Now all I want to do is just clean up that edge.
I can just use the edge of the scoring knife.
[SCRAPING SOUNDS]
This is going to take off any dags.
Right.
The next thing I want to do now is throw some glue down
on the floor exactly where the sheet is going to go.
I've given the floor really good clean, and I've laid some glue.
Now I'm ready to lay down our flooring and start nailing it.
OK.
I'm just about ready to crack on with our nailing.
Now, these toughened nails are specifically
designed for laying the underlay.
They're a 25 mil underlying nail.
Now, the good thing about these sheets,
they've already come pre-marked where all our nails need to go.
They're about every 150 centers.
Around the outside is exactly the same,
except for on corners, we want to come back
about 50 millimeters from each corner to put our nails in.
So the sheets will be nice and secure
when we lay the tiles down.
[HAMMERING NOISES]
Now I've laid down my first sheet,
and I've taken all my dimensions of that
and pre-cut all the other sheets really to go.
So, all I have to do is nail it off.
Exactly the same as I did the first.
[POUNDING NOISES]
[HAMMERING NOISES]
OK.
All the sheets are down.
Now we've made sure they're clean and dust free.
Next step is putting down our primer.
A primer helps the adhesion between the tile and cement
board.
And you may need to use self-leveling compound
if you floor undulates more than three millimeters per meter.
OK.
I'm now ready to do our tile layout.
The first thing you need to do is find a nice straight wall
for you to come off.
In this particular situation, it's
out kickboards of our back row of cabinetry here.
So now I've measured my first tile,
and it is exactly 600 millimeters.
So what I'm going to do is come 603 millimeters
off each end of our cabinetry.
And then I'm going to flick a chalk line down,
and that'll be our first mark to lay our tiles to.
It's a good idea to measure the tiles,
as there can be some inconsistency between batches.
[SNAPPING SOUND]
Now in the ideal situation, it would be great
if I could have two full tiles side by side here,
but because this is too small for that,
what I've decided to do is have one full tile
right in the center.
So what I need to do is measure from one side to the other,
and I'm going to mark down our center line.
My width is 11, 78.
So I've got 589 as the center.
Now because my is 600 millimeters,
I'm going to come half of that, as 300 mil.
That's 300 mil.
Now what I need to do now is square from my chalk line
up to that 300 mil mark.
And that'll give me a guide for exactly where
to lay this line of tile.
Now let me show you how I'm going to lay out the tiles.
So this corner here on our map correlates
with these two intersecting lines here.
So this finished tile, I'm actually just going to dry foot
that, which means putting it down with no adhesive on it,
because I want to pull that up later.
Now, our first couple of tiles we're going to lay down
are these two here.
Then I'm going to cut in these two,
and also cut these two little ones around the back,
and also just lay these two full tiles.
I'll probably come back to this one out here.
Now, once I've laid all of this area,
I'm going to come back and pull up this first tile that's just
sitting there, so I can get right into this nook in here
without mucking that up.
Rightio.
We're just about to mix up our adhesive.
Before you do that, there's a few different types of adhesive
you can buy, so just make sure you
read the back of the packet for the mixing instructions.
Now I'm using a [INAUDIBLE] mixer here.
If you don't have one of those, you can use just a stick.
But just make sure you mix it up nice and thoroughly.
Rightio.
I've ready mixed that adhesive.
I'm just about ready to lay my first tiles.
So what I'm going to do is mark out just under 1,200 mil.
That's going to give me two tiles.
[MEASURING TAPE CLOSES]
Now I'm just going to square that line across.
All this is going to do is give me
a guide so I don't put too much adhesive down.
Because when you laying adhesive,
the last thing you want is that adhesive
to skin off before you start to lay your tiles.
Now, because I'm laying a large format style of tile,
I'm going to use 12 mil notch trowel.
So all we need to do now is to start laying out our adhesive.
Ensure you're notch trowel is the correct size,
and only do a small area at a time,
as the adhesive can dry quickly.
We use a notch trowel to ensure the correct amount of adhesive
is applied to the surface.
OK.
So just before I lay these tiles,
I'm going to give them a damp sponge
down just to take any dust or grit that
might be left on the back.
Cool.
Now, let's just place our first tile down.
Now just remember our chalk line is our guide,
so we want that front edge to be up against that.
And let's just work that down in so
it's got 100% contact with all that adhesive in the back.
The reason we came 603 mils, allowing ourselves
a 3 millimeter gap around the back, that's
to allow for any expansion.
So now we just want to slip in our 3 mil tile spacer.
And onto laying our second tile.
Spacers create a nice, even gap between your tiles.
So just as you're going, obviously we
put in our spacers.
We just also want to make sure that our tiles are absolutely
flush with each other.
If you find that it's up a little bit,
you might need to just knock that down slightly.
You've got quite a bit of adhesive there
to get that nice and perfectly flat.
So just make sure you have a damp sponge on hand
and cleaning any adhesive as you go.
OK.
So what I'm going to do now is just measure up
for our tile that needs to be cut, go outside, and cut it
[INAUDIBLE].
Now let me show you how to cut tiles.
There's a couple of different ways you can go about this.
For a large format tile like this,
you want a good quality tile cutter.
Now just ensure your wheel lines up on your pencil mark.
Bring your arm all the way back, and ensuring the wheel
is touching the very edge of the tile.
Nice, even strike all the way across the tile.
Applying even pressure.
Now just give the handle a gentle knock down
to snap the tile in two.
Now, at some point of your tile laying process,
you're more than likely going to have to take a section of tile
out like this.
To do this, all we're going to do
is drop this back down onto our tile cutter
and for good measure I'll put our stop down.
Now all we're going to do is make a score
on both of these marks.
So we're not going to snap it off here.
[CUTTING NOISES]
Now, let's just spin that back around on our tile cutter
and make a score on our second mark.
[CUTTING NOISES]
And once again line that up on our wheel.
And it's pretty nice and even.
Right.
[CUTTING NOISES]
Now what we want to do this take this over to our bench.
I'm going to cut one of the sides
out with our angle grinder.
So on our cut mark, let's try some masking tape.
That way that's going to protect the tile from any chips that
might come up.
[SAWING SOUNDS]
Let's just place this back in our tile cutter,
and all we're going to do is use the tile cutter
to snap our section off.
Now that's looking pretty good.
If you find that do you have a couple of dags left on there,
what you're going to need to do is use a little nibbler
like this.
And that'll just crunch that out.
Now, another good use for these nibblers
is if you've got a half circle, something like a pipe to chop
out, these will do the job.
[CHIPPING NOISES]
I've measured and cut out my tiles,
and I'm laying them down in the order of my tile plan.
Lay the tiles gently on the adhesive
and press them firmly into place.
Put the tile spacers in around the edges
and then adjust to fit, cleaning up any excess adhesive
as you go.
OK.
Now with these skinny little tiles, what I'm going to do
is put the adhesive on the back of the tile,
as opposed to putting it on the floor, because my trowel is
never going to get in underneath that kickboard.
[SCRAPING NOISES]
OK.
So I'm just about ready to tile inside this little alcove here.
Now, I'm just going to take out this dry foot
tile so I can actually get in there to lay those two tiles.
[KNOCKING SOUNDS]
[SCRAPING SOUNDS]
Now I've just about finished laying my tiles.
I've pre-cut this tile trim, and that's
going to sit right at the front of there just
underneath our tiles.
Now, that gets glued down with our tile adhesive.
So I'm going to put down the adhesive,
lay the tiles as per norm.
[SLAPPING NOISES]
[SCRAPING SOUNDS]
[SLAPPING NOISES]
Rightio.
That's looking absolutely fantastic.
Now we want to leave that for at least 24 hours
before we do anything else to it.
OK.
It's been 24 hours, now I'm just about ready to pop out
my spacers, and I'm just going to clean up
any adhesive that might be stuck to the edge of my tiles.
To do that, I'm just going to use
one of these little trusty utility knives.
Scrape out any adhesive.
Remove the tiles spacers.
And give the tiles a vacuum to prep the area for grouting.
[VACUUMING SOUNDS]
Now, when you are mixing the grout,
just make sure you read the instructions properly.
OK.
Now when it comes to your grouting,
you want to start from your furthest point
and just work out of the room.
Take a little bit of that grout on the grout [INAUDIBLE],,
drop that down, and you want to actually work
in a 45 sort of degree motion.
You don't want to come down the length of your tiles.
Otherwise you're going to end up dragging it out.
And really just try and work that grout in
as deep as you can in between the tiles.
Now, we have chosen to match our grout color to the tiles,
but that's up to individual preference.
It's a good idea to note the color of your grout
in case you need to replace a tile and regrout.
OK.
I know this looks a little bit messy.
Don't worry about that.
We actually want this to dry just to the point
where it starts to look dusty, and then we're
going to come back and clean it all off.
OK.
Now when you're moving the excess grout,
you just want to get this sponge nearly completely dry,
and in the same fashion as we put the grout in,
we're going to remove the excess on a 45 degree.
Now, you don't want too much water in your sponge.
Otherwise we're going to get air bubbles in our grout.
Now, when you are removing the excess grout,
just make sure you do one side of your sponge per swipe.
OK.
Now we can't get all that off in one hit.
What we're going to do is let that dust off again, and then
come back and give it another sponge.
OK.
We'll come back for a second pass now.
It's really important, we don't want too much moisture
on the sponge, and all we're going to do
is just take off the excess.
OK.
Everything's looking nice and clean.
Our next step is putting on our silicone.
Now, I've chosen a silicone that's
going to also color match to our grout.
So all I'm going to do is work from the corner back towards me
on a 45 degree angle.
Let's just gently squeeze that out.
OK.
I'm now just going to take off our excess silicone,
To do that, I've got this nice little silicone applicator
tool.
Now, before I do that, I'm just going
to use a spray bottle here with some soapy water on it.
And what that's going to do is help remove the excess silicone
and leave it nice and clean.
And there we have it.
We've transformed this kitchen with a brand new tiled floor.
It looks great, didn't cost the earth, and was easy as.