We tiled our half bathroom and it was our first time. It was overwhelming. Why? First of all, I am an OVERTHINKER! I don’t like estimates/guesstimates or schemstimates. I need EXACT numbers. And there is a level of guesstimating that goes into mixing thinset for tiles. The water measurements are exact but if you’re not mixing the whole bag (and I wouldn’t advise this from my experience) then you have to estimate the thinset that should be added. As a result, this particular project freaked me out. So much so that it took me over a year to muster up the courage to do it. That and I realized that the HardieBacker (a type of waterproofing material that is laid under tiles) that was installed by the previous owners was not done properly, but that’s another blog post.
Here’s what I learned/wish I knew:
- You’re going to mess up anyways, so might as well mess it up sooner rather than later
- Be easy on yourself! It doesn’t need to be perfect and chances are it won’t be because you’re new to this.
- It is better to start with a wall tile project for your first time and if possible, go with smaller tiles. Large tiles will be quicker but they’re so much harder to handle and work with
- Consider breaking up the tile job i.e. tile half of the space and finish the next day. Tiling when you’re tired and aching from being on your knees is not fun and you’ll make more mistakes.
- You CAN amend your thinset. Just do it during the mixing time period laid out on your thinset bag and you’ll be fine. If after the first mix you see that it is too dry or too runny, add more thinset (or water depending on what it needs) THIS is one reason I don’t think you should mix the whole bag of thinset if you’re a novice
- Another reason I don’t think it’s a good idea is that the thinset fills up the bucket when you mix the whole bag. So it does make it harder to mix it up and the water mixed in properly
- Use your laser level to dry fit and to lay the tiles. I promise you that this is not the time to eyeball it
- Having my husband there was a huge help. He buttered the tiles while I laid them. He also kept me from giving up and crying bc damn this was hard! So have a helper on hand. This isn’t the time to Kelly Clarkson/Neyo it aka be Ms. Independent
This is where our old knees and first time selves should have stopped
Two issues that we ran into is that our thinset started to dry up a bit sooner than we had planned for. As a result, 2 of our tiles were not level with the neighboring tiles. It made it harder to get it out of the bucket and spread it as thin as we did the previous row. This is another reason it’s important not to let fear paralysis/procrastination hold you back. When you “fail” later rather than sooner, you’re so darn tired and over it that you don’t have any will left to live fix and re-do what you did. You just want the darn bathroom to be functional again so you’ll accept anything. So start early and tackle that project that is haunting you. If you can, call on help from a more experienced person to help. You’ll be able to learn and practice with them in real time and probably make less mistakes. Or have a friend on standby for a phone call to ask questions. Either option will help ease your anxiety and give you the support you need to just CIY it!
I was SO proud of us for finally battling this beast, but the problem tiles really bothered me. This house has taught me that I’m a perfectionist and an annoying critic of everything. I went in to look at the tiles at random times to see if it was as bad as I thought it was. I didn’t have the tools nor the patience at that point to redo them, but they irked me. Thankfully my brother-in-law was in town and he offered to help. So he took up the problem tiles and re-laid them. I swear my sleep instantly became peaceful again. He also grouted and this is where we ended up:
Funny story/another lesson this house taught me: It’s not until my tiling ordeal that I started noticing that the tiles in our hallway (which I assume were laid in the 1970s or whatever year we weren’t the owners) were also not perfectly flat! So some professionals did as good of a job that we did and I was beating myself up over it. Did I notice until now that my feet didn’t perfectly glide over several tiles? Nope! I didn’t notice and didn’t mind. Reminder: It’s not necessary to get your projects to a perfect state. Give yourself grace. Especially when it’s your first time doing something.
Tiling made us feel like we are capable of doing anything to our house now. But it also made us seriously aware that we don’t WANT to. And that’s OK. If we can help it, we hope to never tile again. (From my fingertips to God’s eyes!)