Tiling your bathroom – Part 2
Now your wall has the correct makings and guides on you are ready to apply the adhesive, it’s important to remember to use a waterproof tile adhesive in your bathroom especially for areas that will be coming into contact with water. You need to apply the adhesive covering 1 meter square, and then using the toothed edge of the spreader, form horizontal ridges in the adhesive.
You can now place your first tile, this need to go on the right angle formed by the setting out battens at the skirting level, for tiles that do not have lugs, you need to place plastic spacers between them to ensure that there is enough space for the grouting and continue to tile along the row until you get to the end. You then can use a damp cloth or sponge to wipe away any excess adhesive you also need to ensure the tiles are set before removing the battens.
After you have completed the main area of the wall you will then need to cut tiles to fit the adjacent gaps on the walls, to do this, place the tile face down and mark where it needs to be cut with a felt pen, making sure you leave enough room for the normal tile spacing. Then using the tile cutter and holding it against a straight edge score across the face of the tile, use the cutter to finish the job.
If you need to place tiles around fittings such as pipes you will be better off to try and set them out so that you can cut a semi circle from the edges of two adjacent tiles, however if this is not possible mark the centre of the pipe on the top and side edges of the tile and draw lines across from these points. You can use a coin, or something slightly larger than the diameter of the pipe, draw around where the two lines cross, then make a cut straight through the centre of the circle and then use a tile saw to cut out the remaining circle, this can be quite fiddly however the neater the circle the better the finish.
The same goes if you are fitting a tile on a curved surface as well, you can make a template from a piece of card and cut small, evenly spaced slits along one edge of the tile and press them against a curve replicate the shape, then transfer the gradient of the curve on to the face of the tile and then cut using a tile saw.
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