Hello All!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday weekend. Now it is back to business. I am a Trustee at our church and we have been working on adding a bathroom in an old historical home the church owns.

We use to have our church offices in this building but now we are converting it to a nice home for our Youth Directors.

Tiling can be fun with the right equipment!

Tools you will need: Tile snips, tile saw, trowel, grout float, sponge, angle grinder if you have one, Drill, square, level.

Materials you will need: Cement board or Green board Drywall screws, Tile, spacer of choice (the size of your spacers determines the thickness of your grout line), Flex bond mortor and grout.

We are going to take this Big Old Project Slow!

To begin I am going to give you a quick lesson on mixing some of the materials we will be using.

The flexbond is very easy to work with. You will be mixing it with water to a consistency of frosting. You want it to be thick but not too thick to where you cannot spread it easily and definately not runny. We are also going to mix the grout pretty much the same way. I find that I don’t follow the directions because usually it comes out too runny so I start out by pouring the mix into a small bucket and slowly start adding in water and stirring, add a little more water and stir again till you get it looking like mud. Or better yet-like pudding. when you spoon some up and let it drop it should sit on top like pudding does. Sorry, didn’t think to take a picture of it but you will see it as we start putting it up on the walls.

On this particular project I was not the person who hung the cement board. So here is a picture showing some of the tile we have already hung and showing the cement board.

If you are planning on hanging large tile as seen in this picture I suggest using the cement board. They come in 4 ft x 5 ft sheets are heavy but easy to install. You hang it just like dry wall using dry wall screws (approx 1-1/2″ long) Make sure that your corners are square and that the walls are level.

How to: To make sure your corners are square you can check it with a Square and you want to check both top and bottom of the corner. To make sure walls are level you place your level vertically against the wall and check the bubble to make sure it is in the center. You will also want to place the level along the top edge of the cement board checking for levelness as well. If it isn’t you may want to shim behind to achieve the levelness of the wall but usually this is not a problem especially if the 2×4 roughed in are already level. It just doesn’t hurt to check.

Do not be intimidated by this project! It really is easy-just take your time and enjoy creating you’re new look!

Next I figured out what I wanted to do for my tile configuration. I actually laid the bottom row of tiles to see how I wanted to stand them. You can look in magazines if you need ideas. There are so many looks you can develop using decorative tiles as well. On this particular job it was our initiative to keep it simple.

Let your creative juices flow!

If notice in the picture we decided to cut the tile going down the middle so we did not have to cut in the corners. It gave it a modern look and kept the tile from looking monotonous. Craig my partner in crime suggested this look and we rolled with it. We also did the same on the front and the back for consistency. Also take into consideration if you are going to outline the tub with bull nose tile on inner edge or if you will be using it as an accent on

the outer edge of the tub as seen here looking to the right of the tub. I aplogize these pictures didn’t come the best!

I actually drew the tile on the back wall of the tub to see how it looked to me and then drew a different configuration on the other wall to compare designs. This is my favorite part and I love taking my time to get a good design going. You may not be able to tell in these pictures but there is a ledge (shelf we built in) along the back wall to put shampoo. I am going to close with a short story of how this came to be and then next week we will get into actually cutting the tile and getting it in place.

Story!

As usual, most projects have little bumps in the road to make it fun and exciting! At least that is what I tell my self and I call those “Engineering Changes” LOL. While positioning the tub up against the back wall we realized that the hole for the tub drain was going to land right on top of a floor joist. Hence the engineering change. We decided to place the tub out away from the wall and put a 3″ wide ledge along the back wall to be able to make the transition from the tub to the back wall. (This would help us avoid having to cut a floor joist. Never a good idea to weaken a floor; especially one that will be holding a lot of weight!).

GREAT IDEA’S COME FROM ENGINEERING CHANGES!

Great idea’s come from things like this. Now we have a little more dimension to the tub and also have a functioning shelf area to put things on. You got to love it!

Well that is the story and as we get further into the project you will see how wonderful it came out. You can also use these skills for similar smaller projects. I am hoping to have time to tile the inside of a table using some of the left over tiles I have from various projects. I will be definately sharing that project with you hopefully sometime soon.

Have a great weekend as always! Feel free to write you have any requests for specific projects. I would love to hear from you.