How to Start Tiling

What tiling actually involves

A tile job is four separate jobs done in order. First comes preparation: a surface that is flat, solid and clean, which often takes longer than the tiling. Then layout, where you find the center, dry-lay a row and decide where the cut pieces will fall. Then setting, which means mixing mortar, combing it into ridges and pressing tile into it while checking every few pieces with a level. Grouting waits until the mortar has cured, usually the next day. Expect a setting session to run four to six hours, because mixed mortar stays workable for only an hour or two and you cannot stop halfway through a batch. Mixing and cutting are dusty, so plan to do both in a garage, on a driveway or in the yard.

A hand setting a white wall tile on spacers above a wood counter, under a wall of combed white mortar — A wall tile going onto spacers

Reddish-brown hexagonal floor tiles with three lifted out, showing the ridged adhesive underneath

Dust, blades and old floors

Read this before you cut a tile or lift an old floor

Silica dust is the main hazard.

Tile, mortar and grout all contain crystalline silica, and the fine dust from cutting or mixing them scars lungs permanently. Wear a respirator rated N95 or better whenever you dry-cut tile, pour powder into a bucket or sweep up, and do those jobs outdoors when you can.

Cut wet whenever possible.

A score-and-snap cutter makes almost no dust, and a wet saw traps it in water. Never dry-sweep cutting dust. Mist it and wipe it up, or use a vacuum with a HEPA filter.

Test before you remove an old floor.

Sheet vinyl, 9 inch floor tiles and black adhesive laid before the 1980s often contain asbestos. Do not sand, scrape or break them up. Send a sample to an accredited lab first, and either tile over a sound floor or hire a licensed abatement firm.

Protect your eyes every time you cut or nip.

Tile breaks into sharp glassy chips that travel across a room, and a splash of wet mortar in the eye needs flushing with water for 15 minutes and a doctor.

Protect your knees.

An hour kneeling on a hard floor causes real joint damage over time, so wear knee pads for any floor work and stand up to stretch every 20 minutes.

Wet saw

Plug it into a GFCI outlet, keep the water tray full, feed the tile slowly with both hands flat and well away from the blade, and never wear gloves or loose sleeves near it.

Angle grinder

You do not need one to start, but people borrow one for notches and curves, and it is the tool that injures the most tile setters. Keep the guard on, fit a blade made for tile, clamp the tile, hold the grinder with both hands, and wear safety glasses and a respirator, since dry grinding throws more dust than any other cut.

Wet mortar and grout are caustic.

They burn skin slowly without hurting at first, so wear waterproof gloves and wash off any splashes right away.

Official guidance, free to read

Your first tile job, step by step

One tile per step: tick each as you set it

What you can tile in your first month

Practice board

A 2 by 2 foot scrap of backer board tiled and grouted on a workbench, where every mistake is free.

Tiled tabletop or tray

A small flat surface with a border of cut tiles, good practice for layout and straight cuts.

Kitchen backsplash

20 to 30 square feet of wall tile at eye level, with outlet cutouts as the only hard part.

Entry or closet floor

A few square yards of floor tile, small enough to set in one afternoon and grout the next day.

A white kitchen with a subway tile backsplash running behind the range and up to the hood

Where do you want to tile first?

Start on a dry wall, then move to floors

BacksplashWall tile between the counter and the cabinets. It is the classic first job, since the area is small, dry and at eye level, and the base kit covers it.

Start here

Measure the wall between your counter and upper cabinets, multiply width by height for square feet, and buy that much 3 by 6 inch ceramic tile plus 10 percent. Find the center of the wall and dry-lay one row on the counter to see where the cuts land.

Floor TileEntries, laundry rooms and bathrooms outside the shower. Floors demand a flatter surface, a deeper trowel notch, a way to hold larger tiles level with each other, and a lot of kneeling.

Start here

Pick the smallest floor you have, such as an entry or a laundry closet. Lay a straightedge across it in several directions and mark every dip or hump over 1/8 inch, because the floor has to be flat before any tile goes down.

Shower And Wet AreasShower walls, pans and tub surrounds. Tile and grout are not waterproof, so the surface behind them has to be sealed completely. A leak here rots the wall, so save it until you have a dry project behind you.

Start here

Do not start here. Finish one dry-area project first, then read how a shower is waterproofed behind the tile before you buy anything.

Tile Council of North America: FAQ

Read before a wet-area job

Tile Council of North America: FAQ Answers on waterproofing, substrates and movement joints from the group that writes the installation handbook

Open a card to see its first step. Floor Tile and Shower And Wet Areas each add their own gear to the bucket, and you can switch them back out from the kit.

The skills that decide the result

Layout

Start from the center of the most visible area, not from a corner, so the cut tiles at each end match in size.

Choosing the notch

The notch size sets how much mortar stays under the tile. A 1/4 inch square notch suits most wall tile and floor tile up to about 12 inches. Larger tile needs a 1/2 inch notch and a skim of mortar on the back of each piece.

Mixing

Follow the water ratio on the bag exactly. Mortar that is too wet shrinks and lets tiles sag, and adding water to a batch that has stiffened ruins its bond.

Coverage

Mortar ridges should collapse into a solid bed. Aim for at least 80 percent contact in dry areas and 95 percent in wet ones, and check by lifting a tile now and then.

Cutting

Score once with firm, even pressure, then snap. Make cutouts for outlets and pipes by nibbling small bites rather than one big one.

Grouting

Pack joints full, wipe with a nearly dry sponge, and leave the joints where tile meets a counter, tub or corner empty for flexible sealant.

What trips beginners up

Preparation is most of the job. Tile follows whatever is under it, so a wavy wall gives a wavy backsplash, and tile set straight onto plywood, painted drywall in a wet area or a bouncy floor will crack or come loose.
Your first joints will wander. Small differences in tile size and spacer pressure add up over a row, so check against a level line every few tiles and fix drift while the mortar is soft.
Mortar sets faster than you work. Mix half as much as you think you need, and throw out a batch that has skinned over.
Porcelain is harder to cut than ceramic. Start with ceramic wall tile, which snaps cleanly on a basic cutter.
Do not use the corner as your starting line. Corners and counters are rarely level or square, so draw your own level line and work from that.
Do not wipe grout with a wet sponge. Too much water pulls the color out of the joints and leaves them low and weak.
Do not walk on or grout a floor early. Give mortar a full day before grouting and grout three days before heavy use.

A floor of small black, white and gray hexagonal mosaic tiles with narrow grout joints — Small tile, many joints

Where to learn more

Tiling is best learned by watching a whole job from bare wall to final wipe, then asking questions about your own surface. Long-form installer videos show the hand movements that text cannot, a tile forum will tell you whether your subfloor is ready, and the trade bodies publish the standards the professionals work to. Many home centers also run short weekend tiling demonstrations, so ask at the flooring desk.

Free places to watch, read and ask

Why the kit looks like this

Almost everything in a tile kit is a simple hand tool you buy once, and the cheap versions work fine for a first project. The cutter is the one place where spending more shows, because a stiffer rail gives cleaner snaps on hard tile. Mortar and grout are consumables sized here for a practice board and a small backsplash. The tile itself is the real cost of each project and is priced by the square foot, so it sits outside the startup figure. Floor and shower gear is kept separate so you only buy it when you take on that kind of job, and a wet saw is worth renting by the day until you know you will keep tiling.

A wall of white glazed subway tile laid in a running bond with gray grout — White subway tile in a running bond

Load the bucket

The first line is the tile itself, which you buy in person rather than online. The essential and recommended tools start in the bucket. Gear for Floor Tile and Shower And Wet Areas joins once you pick that job, above or from the add-ons in the kit. Compare the options, then set your picks and check out from the kit. Clicking a card selects it there.

Tile and backer board for the first project

essential · Materials

Tile is heavy, breakable and sold by the box, and you want to see its true color and check every box carries the same lot number.

Not sold on Amazon · buy at a home center or tile shop

Not sold on Amazon. Buy from a home center or tile shop: one box of plain ceramic wall tile and a sheet of 1/2 inch cement backer board covers the practice board for about $30. For a real project, buy your measured square footage plus 10 percent for cuts and breakage.

Manual tile cutter

essential · Cutting

It makes straight cuts by scoring the glaze and snapping the tile, with no water, noise or dust. Most cuts on a backsplash or small floor are straight ones.

budget

QEP 10220Q 20" Ceramic & Porcelain Tile Cutter with 1/2" Cutting Wheel

4.3(343)

$49.80

Tiling

What tiling actually involves

Dust, blades and old floors

Your first tile job, step by step

Where do you want to tile first?

The skills that decide the result

What trips beginners up

Where to learn more

Why the kit looks like this

Load the bucket

Tile and backer board for the first project

Manual tile cutter

Square-notch trowel, 1/4 inch

Margin trowel

Thinset mortar

Tile grout

Rubber grout float

Grout sponge

Tile spacers

Level

Dust respirator

Safety glasses

Tile nippers

Mortar mixing paddle

Waterproof work gloves

Knee pads

Square-notch trowel, 1/2 inch

Tile leveling system

Liquid waterproofing membrane

Silicone sealant for tile joints

Wet tile saw