How To Install Mosaic Tile Backsplash

hi I'm Shannon from house improvements comm and I'm going to show you how to install a mosaic backsplash tile right here on this island so you can see I've already started some of it here yesterday actually and I'm just going to finish this last a little bit here so the tile we're using is a 12 well basically a 12 by 12 tile and we're going to end up cutting it to make it work for what we want to do so you can see in this particular tile we've got various different materials in it there's glass there's some stone different couple different stones and there's some stainless panels as well so so there's a little bit everything in this tile so basically start out with just determine what the best fit is for how you're going to need to cut the tile this tile is attached it's all little individual pieces but it's attached with kind of a mesh backing so it's it's really easy to cut I just need to determine where I'm cutting it which would be the same as these pieces I'm going to cut it here so just take your utility knife stick it in between the rows and just cut that that mesh off now this one we're kind of cutting a few rolls out of it that we just didn't work for the space we had and then we're reusing some of those pieces to fill in so I'm just making up my pieces here typically if we weren't if you weren't working with a restricted height you just cut that tile in half or use the full tile and go ahead with with it but we kind of have a height restriction there so we had to modify the sheets a little bit to make them work so this just simply will interlock with the last piece that you left off now you can see I've got some rows above that yet so in this case all I was doing was cutting the appropriate sized tiles off of these strips that we took off and filling in those last two rolls so just to make it work out for what we wanted so to begin with I'm going to be using just a mastic to type glue adhesive to put these on because we're not really in a wet zone and by that I mean we're not in a shower we're not at the bathtub we can use a mastic you shouldn't use a mastic in a shower or a whetstone like that because this mastic will just promote mold growth so you definitely don't want to use it there but in on a backsplash application it'll work just fine so there's a couple different ways you can do it you can take your mastic with the appropriate trowel and you know apply it to the wall and just work you know start sticking your tiles on because I was leaving off last night I didn't want to get any mastic on the wall that was going to be I guess my buckets in the wing I didn't want to have any mastic left and trying to clean it out of these areas because I knew I was going to stop last night and not finish the job so I'm just applying it right on the back of the tiles and I'll just continue doing that here today for the amount we have left so just make sure you got your tile cut right how you want it just simply take some mastic and apply it on the back of the tiles so you're just rubbing it on there try not to force it down you know we're obviously putting it on the back side but try not to force it down into the grout line joints then you'll just have more cleaning up to do to get it out of there so that you have space for the growth so I'm just kind of dabbing it on the actual tiles as much as I can and then I just go for awesome stroke it out a bit so it's even some ridges I'm sure you can see the ridges I have there in the mastic okay so once I have it just take it up to the wall the general area that I'm going and stick it on the wall now I want to push every individual tile on there if you have a rubber rubber float for doing grout or whatever you can just kind of use it to kind of press this all on and then just slide your tile one way or the other to get your grout lines or the butt into the last one to space out the amount you want looks like I can get one more on here before we're going to deal with that plug in and switch so we'll stick that one on so just try to make sure every tile has mastic on it look your way along there I find when you're in a tight space like this it's easier to put it on the tile as well and you're you're not getting it all over the countertop or any other area on the wall that you don't want it I'll just put it all on here something like that pop this one place long there get rid of it okay so I've also turned the I pulled the plugins and switches out turn the breakers off just receive these so if I touch something I don't get a shock okay so we got those couple full ones on now basically we're we're going to use a piece of the tile trim the metals on the hand I already have one on that end so that'll be the position that we're going to stop so at this point now it's going to be just as easy for me to cut some of these pieces all apart the different sizes and put them in one by one as opposed to trying to cut out that plug in out of one of these sheets if you're using say just some square tiles 4x4 6x6 is two by twos whatever then you know you'd be putting usually putting them on individually anyways and just cut them to fit around the electrical one thing with the electrical with this style the Decorah style of plugs and switches you not only need to I can move this enough out of the way you not only need something to point here need to stay away from the hole in the box where the mounting screw for the receptacle or switch goes but you also need to stay away just below that is where the mounting screw for the cover plate goes through if you look right here here's the mounting screw that goes in this box in this the hole on the box right below at this spot here is where the little white screw is that you'll mount the cover with and you can actually see where that screw has indented the drywall right here so you need to make sure that you don't put any tile in those areas at all otherwise you're going to have a heck time getting your switches in and also getting your covers to mount on there nice and flush so just stay out of those areas as long as you're close to that like just under it the cover will cover the whole like the space anyway so you just got to get up close and but not cover it so if I just move these a little bit out of the way I'm going to put some mastic on the back of here I already had figured out where my position was for this so I'm just going to stick it on the wall right now so let's forget it but as I'm talking so I just put some mastic right on the back of it just like I did with the tile and hands just push it into position right where I wanted it there clean off a little bit of that excess so it doesn't dry before we get back to that now this mastic is water base so you can simply clean it up you know don't leave it too long but you can clean it up with some warm water to get it off okay so I've got that stuck on there where I wanted it now what I need to do is start filling in some of these rows of tile so my bottom row this this bunch of tile I have is not only three different products but it's also three different sizes like as far as width and I don't even know how many different lengths so so there's a lot going on here this one's a little more difficult to deal with because you got so many choices so that one broke so then what you want to do is just kind of figure out what tiles are going to work where what cuts you need to make and glue them Leon to the wall so I'm just going to keep working away at that a little bit and that way I can show you how to cut them as well so this one will work just as a full tile so just put some mastic on the back and stick it on the wall just like so now our next roll is a is one of these a little bit narrower types of tile so you're kind of looking at your pattern - this one's pretty random so you try not to get in my case try not to get too many colors that are similar right side by side so this one's going to have to be cut I'm just going to take a jiffy marker and you can either measure it or just hold it up there where you want it to be and put a marker line on it and I'm going to come down here to my snap cutter and just line that up with the little scoring wheel on here and score the surface like that and then it's got this foot here that just when you lean down and just push slightly down on it it breaks the tile to a clean cut now that got kind of fabric meshes on the back so you just have to cut it with the glass tiles that marker mark if it's left on there we'll just wipe right off I'm going to put my factory end up to the end of the factory tile that is already on the wall make sure I'm not in the way where those screws are going to be it looks good put a little bit of mastic on there these little tiles are a little tougher to work with getting all over your hands slide into the position you like double check those holes and that ones there so then I could just work my way up there all the way to the top and same thing out to this end now going back here I've got some full rows and the both rows are this it's kind of under the edge of the counter there so might be difficult for you to see but really it's just the same process of what I just did down there by the plugin I'm just putting some mastic on there's nothing to cut around here for for little ways so I can just move them on get my used some different sizes woo get the joint staggering got and I just keep working my way along there so that's what I'm doing with these pieces that are left over I'm kind of using them as strips or using them to get the strips out of that I need to finish the rows nice thing is that they do cut apart pretty easily so it's not a big issue to work with just do a couple more here and I think that's pretty much all you need to know for this trying to keep the tiles as clean as I can soluz that's the deal with cleaning it up before grouting so that snap cutter that I was showing you that'll work for pretty much any type of tile what it won't be that good for actually any good for it all is if you had some square tiles or some type of bigger tile you know like maybe it's four by fours four just for an example and you need to cut a corner out of it like to go around say a plug in or something this cutter is not going to do that you're going to need either angle grinder with a masonry type cutting blade in it or you're going to need a wet saw so this the snap cutter is really only good for straight cuts where you're going completely across the tile so so that's that's the basics on installing a tile backsplash a lot of the principles are the same installing any kind of tile on the wall other than if you're in a wet area you will definitely want to use a mortar instead of a mastic but if you're in a kitchen like this where those tiles aren't constantly getting wet the mastic is just fine so I think that's the main thing remember turn your power off once you're all done you can put the plugs and switches all back in like once it's all grouted and put your covers on and everything should be good so I think that's it so I hope you enjoyed it please click the thumbs up button up wherever you see on your screen if you like this video if you have any comments or questions about this or any other project that you might be looking after please come to the forum at house - improvements comm right there you can ask you know find the topic that kind of fits what you're wondering about and put your post your question up there I'll be sure to get back to you I check it a couple three times a day at least so thanks for watching for now and please check out our all our other videos on our YouTube channel

Channel: HouseImprovements

Views: 205,238

Keywords: tile, kitchen, bath, room, bathroom, wall, mastic, glue, tiles, glass, stone, mosaic, install, diy, how-to, Do It Yourself (Website Category), How-to (Media Genre), grout

Id: p2leAv5Eurk

Length: 15min 23sec (923 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 09 2014