DIY Subway Tile Shower with Glass Mosaic

in today's video I'm going to demonstrate how to install the subway tile with a decorative glass mosaic strip using my laser level [Music] all right for closing up our shower we're gonna be using a 4 by 12 glossy a ceramic tile this is a brilliant product because it has lots of flexibility great style and easy easy easy to install as long we shouldn't get your first real level that is why it's very important to have your laser level handy I can't preach enough about this every tool that every homeowner should have in their in their toolbox so before we get started one quick tip make sure that you've peeled back your protective layer of plastic off your top lid you don't want to let that get caught underneath your tile or that will end up causing your problems down the road and always have a pail of water with a sponge handy I like to clean as I go it just makes my life a lot easier and if you're doing this professionally for people every time they pop their head around the corner and what see you working it is so encouraging for them to see the nice clean job site so the beginning of a tile job is always the same it's called mapping it out you need to think about how you're installing your tile now our basic direction here is to start with a 50% offset so it's a typical subway pattern just a offset from the stack in the middle so what we want to do is first measure our back wall off and put a center line on and this back wall should be 59 inches and so that should leave us at 29 and a half just right here so the process here is simple we just take a couple of tiles we start with a grout line on this underline and we work towards the outside and you'll see that we are left with about a half a tile that is brilliant and because we're staggering 50% every other rule will be half tile full tile and of course the same math if we start in the middle of the tile we'll be left with a full tile at the edge side so what I'm doing is I'm checking to see how level my wall is all together and I'm going to be good there so if I use that as my starting row right there and then I cut a bunch of tiles in half I can start building the entire back wall from this corner off that line and that is brilliantly if you don't have a laser you can always just use a regular level but of course this never lies and now okay so in this case the right side is pretty straight the left side actually opens up so this tells me that if I'm gonna go with half offset I should start in this corner and then whenever I get to my end and I have to cut a tile I can always cut it to fit without wrecking my pattern so also set this up here you can see the laser line in this wall here max I'll get out of the way this is the laser level we're going to use now this tub is installed flush on the subfloor and the house has got a bit of a dip so the tub isn't exactly level and that is not going to be a problem because this is the drain end now I've got to set up for full tile here as I come around the corner you'll see that really soon BAM right there I'm already my line so the way I mapped this out and the reason I want the laser level here is I want to cut all of these pieces for the bottom row first to fit up against this laser level and then I can use my wedge spacers and make sure I got a perfectly straight line here before I start building the wall if you just start tiling you've got a little slope you're gonna have a hard time getting all your joints in the corners to line up because the tile will be sticking in every direction as it follows the slope if you don't start level you can't finish level it may not look bad to when you're sitting in here building it when you walk in the room after you're all finished it'll scream at you hey that's crooked we don't want that you know the easiest way to do this is just mark the walls okay and then you take a look at your laser level and you can put your tile to your laser level over here sorry in that wrong corner there and here and when you put that on the tile cutter you just line up the two lines on the cutting line score and snap so now that our tiles are cut ready to build the first row before we get started we want to get our plastic edges on this will determine how what the actual outside measurement is going to be and really the secret here let's just get a little something you can press that edging into alright we can attach the rest of this later there we go now we can just set up our laser starting down at the baseboard and you just push that over until it's exactly where you want it to be very nice now you can see the tile that we've chosen here has got a beautiful honeycomb on the back of it which means that I can go with 1/4 by 3/8 trowel this puts a really nice thick Ridge on they're great for collapse and those ridges and getting good at agent and the secret here is pushing that tile shut without a grout line alright and then you slide it into position so I've got a couple of different spacers here today I've got a 1/8 spacer I like subway tile with a little bit of gap a little bit of grout I just look it's a lot more classic and then these are wedges alright now these wedges are designed to help get this perfectly level and also create a little bit of a gap between the tile and the acrylic tub remember acrylic when it gets full of water is going to be bending around a lot so you don't want to have it in direct contact because it'll cause squeaking so we just put a wedge underneath create that air space then we can remove later before we go out and you can also use it to level it and then establish your space with your spacer for your grout line there we go it is that simple okay so because we have our edging already installed I like to take these little wax bits off as I go I don't like to leave it until it's all the tiles install in case there's an accident now I'm gonna be putting it tight to that and then marking - to grout lines right hopefully Matt that'll cut okay I got my son helping me today he's doing all the cutting yeah no pressure one of the reasons why I think subway tile is a perfect do-it-yourself job is because the the tile is small enough and because it's made of ceramic it's very easy to cut you can use just a score tool which puts a scratch and then pressure and always snaps right on the line Matt Justin did this one and that's a really nice cut that is really clean all right you can do that that tools available at the building store for about $30 that's awesome you can always get a wet wet saw as well but for this tile how would use a score tool almost exclusively and then for around this area just get a ceramic bit for your four inch grinder and you can just use that wheel and cut any decorative hole you need and that's about the only tools you'll ever need for this now you see that the edge of this tub has a bit of a raise to it use that I'm not level and that's what wedges are for so I'm going to get that line level first based off my laser and then I'm going to use my wedges to raise the rest of my line so the reason I switched to laser level for doing my tile is because I would end up getting might my level so filthy I'm always laying it in the mud and I couldn't get a proper line unless I clean all the cement and start it over again it drove me nuts so this way I have a perfect line all around the entire tub not just from corner to corner and that helps make sure the job is perfect every time okay so we just set up our laser level down here to have a look right on the edge of the tile and so down here I am just just hovering above the stone okay and then over as I come across as the your eye will play tricks on you I think that was level it looked good it was a straight line but it wasn't a level line so this is why these wedges are so awesome I can actually make this adjustment until it is absolutely perfect all right so now we have our first row well established I'm pretty happy with what's going on with it Oh spacer commit remember we already checked with their laser level so we know that straight up is perfect I cut a bunch of tiles in half so we're going to just start with a half tile there so now what's this like building a pyramid right get your cement on the wall and this is going to be a mess here then when you use an adhesive so I always have that pail and sponge handy clean as you go try to keep the extra cement how do the grout lines as much as you can just run your travel along there like that or even both your fingers okay what you're gonna do is just place them right on the tile first okay start with two rows at a time here so we just lift the tile drop in our spacers and because we've got the the road well leveled off just do the ends you don't have to put them everywhere just to support the tile to keep it from sliding around okay and that's it no I want to straighten out our line here always put your cuts on the inside of course press it in lift it up and do the spacer system it where you need it I like to start at the bottom and then lift it up so I'm pulling the cement away from the grout line and then just do over and over and over again start tight to the tile okay this one slipped off the laser and you can keep an eye on this and adjusted as you go after about half an hour these tiles on the wall are not going to be able to move anymore with this type of cement okay so you got a little bit of time to play with this nice and tight and the reason you go nice and tight it's a great way to check to see if everything's square in level if I put this on nice and tight I got a huge gap I know if it got fixed something okay so we're just going to set the space up now for good measure once we have our line here established put these spacers back in - and that'll make sure that all of your grout lines all over the wall are uniform you don't have big gaps and little gaps opening up next to each other that always looks unsightly now during the introduction I mentioned that we're doing a subway tile with the glass mosaic so now it's time to discuss the glass mosaic and why it's necessary most of the tile that's produced today is produced under the assumption that you're having a 5 foot shower which is why these are just under 12 inches plus the grout line full five tiles across looks very aesthetically pleasing easy to Center easy to install plus they're also made at a certain height so that on a traditional 20-inch tub which is now the norm and a regular eight-foot ceiling it's just about a full tile at the top maybe a little bit more maybe a little bit less but nonetheless it'll finish well with either a little grout or a little grind and it'll look like a full tile after the silicone edge goes on what you need to know is what if your situation is a little bit different and it's gonna be just a sliver what if you end up with just one inch of tile left what if your house is a little short or you've got a bulkhead or you bought a shorter tub and the math doesn't work how do you fix that and this is what we do there are bazillion options of mixed mosaic tile different thicknesses one square foot sheets like this with a reoccurring pattern okay what you can do is you just follow the simple procedure and you can use your mosaic to make the adjustment on your finish before you get there so merge it down from your ceiling all right we're just a little bit over there under 32 inches so I check how's that gonna look well I'm a little bit over 32 inches to a full tile so the tile at the very top of the ceiling will use this I'm gonna end up cutting them of this much off in this particular situation this tile and this tub work because I checked both sides already and on the other side it's perfect and on the side that's inside the house it's actually got a little bit of a gap so I'm gonna have a little bit of a cut vinyl around the top just like I did around the bottom because remember I have a square house and I went and it fell in so now all I had to cut the bottom room the tile to make a level the top will get cut to be level and it'll work out but if you had a problem with that and you were going from the 0 to 1 inch filler I'll guarantee give that 1 inch piece of tile would look like garbage so I'm gonna back this up one row of title instead of the 32 I'm gonna go to 28 and 1/4 and that'll give me my own the room that I need that's my mark and I want to make my mosaic that thick so now I would take my sheet and on the bottom I've got a thicker piece up here we've got a thinner piece I'm just say ok so I need a grout line if I use those it's too much if I go here it's too much if I go there it's just right ok what if I started this into the sheet that's not enough so that's what I'm gonna use me as the thick 1 2 3 4 and then I've got a reoccurring pattern here thick 1 2 3 4 so that means I'm going to get 2 linear feet per sheet I bought a couple extra sheets because I know this usually happens and then we are going to put in that much mosaic tile all around so that we finish with a full tile and that is how you solve your problems this is a great way to fill in the differences if you're using large stone especially you can put in two bands if you want now traditionally we put it around five feet in the shower okay so stand in the shower measure up to five feet it's it kind of like line-of-sight in the bathroom all right so when you look around the glass should be right in front of your eyes that's all you need to know about mosaic tile of course this is glass so cutting this can be a little tricky and maybe we should go to the saw and show you how to do that so I'm gonna demonstrate how to cut glass mosaic if you have a wet saw it's simple just set it on the table and slide it through but if you don't you're going to be using a grinder wheel and this is fine this is a nice porcelain grinder wheel the trick here is actually cut from the backside alright it reduces the the breakage and the chipping on the front of the glass and give us a nice straight line and because I'm going into a corner I have to have a straight line so I'm just gonna eyeball a straight line off this shorter tile here [Applause] nope okay so I wanted what you'll see is I'm not cutting through it I'm pressing down the middle of the tile and it's splitting and watch this right here you can see the grinder only came to this point and then Shh it cut right off okay we're going into a corner the other glass are coming against it and then that is all you need to do you have to do one two three probably four of these cuts for the entire mosaic strip other than that the rest of these will fit together the way that it's on the sheet now in order to cut a hole in the middle of the tile and this is important because you're gonna be putting your tub faucet here and the tub faucet may or may not be big enough to cover this plus the grout line and you don't want it to be a place where the water can get through so it's important to cut just enough hole for the pipe to come out what I'm gonna do is I'm going to just lightly touch on all four of these lines okay and then I'm going to finish the cut from the back side and if you'll watch carefully I'll show you how it's done and then when I'm done doing it I'll explain exactly how I did it alright so you'll see I've started the cut on the glaze and then what I do is from the backside I can see visually looking at this where the line is and I use the grinder and just make us just a quick line on the back of the stone and that translates all that information to the back of the tile now I cut through from the back side [Music] that gives me the ability to finish that cut without having the bleed cross-cutting right into the over the tile and my tub spoke connection I'll have no problem covering that okay so right now we're going to talk about the kerdi-band tea and this particular cement and why we're choosing this for our glass mosaic the funny thing is glass is usually heavier than ceramic relatively speaking and they come pre attached to the back of the sheet alright it's an adhesive now a lot of times these spaces that are in between this glass are different than the spacers that you're using on your wall so for instance we'll take one of these oops and here's my 1/8 spacer it barely makes it in there but if I try to put it in between all these tiles it actually doesn't fit over all these four joints this joint spacing is actually something like two-fifteenths instead of 2:16 it's a little bit strange so the spacers are useless I can't use them so if I'm building a wall like this and I put in my mosaic strip I can use a spacer on the bottom and I can stop there and I can wait till tomorrow to come back when it's dry or I can use the right cement that's gonna hold it up there even without spacers and it's not gonna slip you know it sounds ridiculous but when you go to the hardware store you're stuck you have usually three choices of cement there's a modified and I modified the modified means it has a glue in it and then there's an ultra-light which is good for putting tile on a ceiling where I go from my tile products it has the entire line the entire map a line of everything that's available so I've got grey and white options I've modified and unmodified for five different kinds of tile regular thin set large format tile ceiling tile ultra light I mean if you can dream it up they've got the product there so when you're shopping for your cement if you get to a tile supply store instead of a building store you're probably going to be a lot more happy with your result and a lot more options so in something like this you can tile all the shower in a day or it can take an entire weekend now if you were to put two of these glass strips in there it could take you three days or you just buy the right cement for the job spend the extra couple bucks and finish it all off in an afternoon I'll let you be the judge now when I'm mixing cement generally speaking the first minute of mixing I want to have a little bit less product in there than I need just so I can make sure I can clean out all of the clumps that sit in the corners of course always add water first there we go now I know that dense soup is gonna be able to withstand all the rest of smooth that I pour in there [Music] [Applause] so you only want to mix this one so you don't want to wait in ten minutes where's you're supposed to allow it to set up and then come back and go oh I need more water because it's not gonna perform properly for you you just destroyed your cement so you want to mix it thin enough just to the point where when you travel it it holds the trowel groove but it's still sloppy okay that way in ten minutes from now when this is set it might be a little more firm but it's uh performed well on the wall now we bought this cement to use on our mosaic but because I like to be efficient I'm gonna do the rest of the wall with it because I don't like mixing just a little bit of cement in a pail just a little demonstration here ready this is the cement that doesn't sag there you go yeah I'm using a 1/4 by 3 is so that's a lot of cement on my good good adhesion but a 90% contact just by tossing it on the wall like that and it wasn't slipping anywhere great product this is the white cement it looks a little gray doesn't but this is the white and the reason we picked the white is because the glass has just a paper on it and then all the edges are behind the sheet will actually bring that color for so if we use the dark grey cement your white glass is going to turn a really dark grey on you we don't want that before I put the glass on I'm just going to make sure that my edge here is nice and clean and this is important when you're doing glass make sure that this edge here is nice and clean we're just gonna start in the edge here and the same as the other tie we'll start right on the base okay nice and tight and then I'm going to just lift it up and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use my tool to lift so I'm not pressing against the wall I'm just gonna give it a little bit pressure voila that's not moving anywhere when I put the tile above it I'm gonna get exactly the same result that's not going to move anywhere either I'm gonna already put my grout line there done right and so for some of these trickier places it's hard to reach you can't get your travel in and around this corner and because I was busy building that other wall first I've let this dry feel free to just add your cement to the back of the tile okay be real liberal here hold your trowel out of about 75 80 degrees and then just run that off we'll end up getting the same thickness as is on the wall okay just like that do all sides of the hole all right take the extra cement off and then just fire it over there [Music] done okay so the only other thing you needs to know is this when you're done your tile work the next day you come back take all your spacers out all right take the wet sponge and force it in all the lines and clean them all out the cements that we're using here within 48 hours you can wipe them out pretty simply and it'll actually clean up real nice without any tools or risk of damaging your tile also when you're doing the round the sides down the bottom of the tub you usually do that at the end of the job save some of this tea its product okay from Matt pine and use that down there too and then you can build backwards knowing that the tiles not going to slip in and make a big mess other than that patience patience patience keep your lines level get a laser level I can't stress that enough and you'll have a successful tile job too so if you like this kind of video make sure you like it ask all the questions in the world you like in the comments section below don't forget to check us out on Instagram we'll see you again next time [Music]

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 944,938

Keywords: Glass Mosaic, subway tile, glass tile shower, glass subway tile, how to tile with glass, how to install subway tile in bathroom, subway tile shower installation, subway tile shower, home renovision tile, installing glass tile in bathroom, how to install subway tile in a shower, glass tile shower wall, how to install glass mosaic tile in shower, how to install glass tile in shower, glass mosaic tile shower, mosaic tile shower, mosaic tile installation shower

Id: k79pQvK5nLQ

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018