Tiles are a great
option for flooring. They're really
durable, easy to clean, and with a bit of
attention to detail, you can easily
lay them yourself. I'll show you had to
lay some new floor tiles and improve the
look of your place. We'll measure out the
area we're going to tile, drop down some tile
and slate underlay, and then map out the tile
layout design over top. Now if you are
tiling in a wet area, just make sure you
call in a professional. Now, there's loads of
different shapes and sizes of tiles you can choose. I've decided to go with a
600 by 600 porcelain tile. This is going to look absolutely
brilliant down on our floor. Now I've already ripped out
the liner that was on the floor here. If you've got an
older style house, you might pay to get someone
in just to check the floor out, just to make sure that liner
doesn't contain asbestos. Now, if this was
a concrete floor, I'd just make sure there's
no undulations, humps and bumps in it. You might want to grind it off. Because I've got a timber
floor, I've been underneath it. I've checked it out. Everything's nice and secure. The floorboards are
in great condition. So the next step is to measure
it up and start cutting our tile and slate underlay. So I've just draw
myself a little map, and I'm just going to take all
the dimensions of the floor down, so I can work out
best how my sheets are going to look on the floor. Some cabinetry may
not be aligned, so make sure you measure
the area thoroughly. OK So it's 25, 30. And it's about [INAUDIBLE] 30. Now, this is our tile
and slate underlay. I'm going to use my
little chart there with all of our
dimensions, and I'm going to mark out the shape. Now, one thing I
will point out is, I have allowed a 5
millimeter space from where our boards finish
up to our toekicks, so it does fit in nice and easy. Now, there's a couple
of different ways we can cut this board. I could use the mighty
angle grinder, which is going to be a pretty
fast sort of job, but it's going to be
very dusty and noisy. But what I'm going to use is
this Lindbergh's scoring knife. These are dust free, nice
and cheap, and easy to use. So you just want to score this
a few times so you're about half the way through, and then just
bend it over and snap it off. OK. I have scored there about
half the way through, so that should be just about
ready for me to snip that off, nice and easy. Now all I want to do is
just clean up that edge. I can just use the edge
of the scoring knife. [SCRAPING SOUNDS] This is going to
take off any dags. Right. The next thing I want to do
now is throw some glue down on the floor exactly where
the sheet is going to go. I've given the floor really good
clean, and I've laid some glue. Now I'm ready to lay down our
flooring and start nailing it. OK. I'm just about ready to
crack on with our nailing. Now, these toughened
nails are specifically designed for laying
the underlay. They're a 25 mil
underlying nail. Now, the good thing
about these sheets, they've already come pre-marked
where all our nails need to go. They're about every 150 centers. Around the outside
is exactly the same, except for on corners,
we want to come back about 50 millimeters from each
corner to put our nails in. So the sheets will
be nice and secure when we lay the tiles down. [HAMMERING NOISES] Now I've laid down
my first sheet, and I've taken all
my dimensions of that and pre-cut all the other
sheets really to go. So, all I have to
do is nail it off. Exactly the same
as I did the first. [POUNDING NOISES] [HAMMERING NOISES] OK. All the sheets are down. Now we've made sure they're
clean and dust free. Next step is putting
down our primer. A primer helps the adhesion
between the tile and cement board. And you may need to use
self-leveling compound if you floor undulates more than
three millimeters per meter. OK. I'm now ready to
do our tile layout. The first thing you need to do
is find a nice straight wall for you to come off. In this particular
situation, it's out kickboards of our back
row of cabinetry here. So now I've measured
my first tile, and it is exactly
600 millimeters. So what I'm going to do
is come 603 millimeters off each end of our cabinetry. And then I'm going to
flick a chalk line down, and that'll be our first
mark to lay our tiles to. It's a good idea to
measure the tiles, as there can be some
inconsistency between batches. [SNAPPING SOUND] Now in the ideal situation,
it would be great if I could have two full
tiles side by side here, but because this is
too small for that, what I've decided to do
is have one full tile right in the center. So what I need to do is measure
from one side to the other, and I'm going to mark
down our center line. My width is 11, 78. So I've got 589 as the center. Now because my is
600 millimeters, I'm going to come half
of that, as 300 mil. That's 300 mil. Now what I need to do now
is square from my chalk line up to that 300 mil mark. And that'll give me a
guide for exactly where to lay this line of tile. Now let me show you how I'm
going to lay out the tiles. So this corner here
on our map correlates with these two
intersecting lines here. So this finished tile, I'm
actually just going to dry foot that, which means putting it
down with no adhesive on it, because I want to
pull that up later. Now, our first couple of
tiles we're going to lay down are these two here. Then I'm going to
cut in these two, and also cut these two
little ones around the back, and also just lay
these two full tiles. I'll probably come back
to this one out here. Now, once I've laid
all of this area, I'm going to come back and pull
up this first tile that's just sitting there, so I can get
right into this nook in here without mucking that up. Rightio. We're just about to
mix up our adhesive. Before you do that, there's a
few different types of adhesive you can buy, so
just make sure you read the back of the packet
for the mixing instructions. Now I'm using a
[INAUDIBLE] mixer here. If you don't have one of those,
you can use just a stick. But just make sure you mix
it up nice and thoroughly. Rightio. I've ready mixed that adhesive. I'm just about ready
to lay my first tiles. So what I'm going to do is
mark out just under 1,200 mil. That's going to
give me two tiles. [MEASURING TAPE CLOSES] Now I'm just going to
square that line across. All this is going
to do is give me a guide so I don't put
too much adhesive down. Because when you
laying adhesive, the last thing you
want is that adhesive to skin off before you
start to lay your tiles. Now, because I'm laying a
large format style of tile, I'm going to use 12
mil notch trowel. So all we need to do now is to
start laying out our adhesive. Ensure you're notch trowel
is the correct size, and only do a small
area at a time, as the adhesive can dry quickly. We use a notch trowel to ensure
the correct amount of adhesive is applied to the surface. OK. So just before I
lay these tiles, I'm going to give
them a damp sponge down just to take
any dust or grit that might be left on the back. Cool. Now, let's just place
our first tile down. Now just remember our
chalk line is our guide, so we want that front edge
to be up against that. And let's just work
that down in so it's got 100% contact with
all that adhesive in the back. The reason we came 603
mils, allowing ourselves a 3 millimeter gap
around the back, that's to allow for any expansion. So now we just want to slip
in our 3 mil tile spacer. And onto laying our second tile. Spacers create a nice, even
gap between your tiles. So just as you're
going, obviously we put in our spacers. We just also want to make sure
that our tiles are absolutely flush with each other. If you find that
it's up a little bit, you might need to just
knock that down slightly. You've got quite a
bit of adhesive there to get that nice
and perfectly flat. So just make sure you
have a damp sponge on hand and cleaning any
adhesive as you go. OK. So what I'm going to do
now is just measure up for our tile that needs to be
cut, go outside, and cut it [INAUDIBLE]. Now let me show you
how to cut tiles. There's a couple of different
ways you can go about this. For a large format
tile like this, you want a good
quality tile cutter. Now just ensure your wheel
lines up on your pencil mark. Bring your arm all the way
back, and ensuring the wheel is touching the very
edge of the tile. Nice, even strike all
the way across the tile. Applying even pressure. Now just give the handle
a gentle knock down to snap the tile in two. Now, at some point of
your tile laying process, you're more than likely going to
have to take a section of tile out like this. To do this, all
we're going to do is drop this back down
onto our tile cutter and for good measure
I'll put our stop down. Now all we're going
to do is make a score on both of these marks. So we're not going
to snap it off here. [CUTTING NOISES] Now, let's just spin that
back around on our tile cutter and make a score
on our second mark. [CUTTING NOISES] And once again line
that up on our wheel. And it's pretty nice and even. Right. [CUTTING NOISES] Now what we want to do this
take this over to our bench. I'm going to cut
one of the sides out with our angle grinder. So on our cut mark, let's
try some masking tape. That way that's going to protect
the tile from any chips that might come up. [SAWING SOUNDS] Let's just place this
back in our tile cutter, and all we're going to
do is use the tile cutter to snap our section off. Now that's looking pretty good. If you find that do you have a
couple of dags left on there, what you're going to need to
do is use a little nibbler like this. And that'll just
crunch that out. Now, another good use
for these nibblers is if you've got a half circle,
something like a pipe to chop out, these will do the job. [CHIPPING NOISES] I've measured and
cut out my tiles, and I'm laying them down in
the order of my tile plan. Lay the tiles gently
on the adhesive and press them
firmly into place. Put the tile spacers
in around the edges and then adjust to fit,
cleaning up any excess adhesive as you go. OK. Now with these skinny little
tiles, what I'm going to do is put the adhesive on
the back of the tile, as opposed to putting it on
the floor, because my trowel is never going to get in
underneath that kickboard. [SCRAPING NOISES] OK. So I'm just about ready to tile
inside this little alcove here. Now, I'm just going to
take out this dry foot tile so I can actually get in
there to lay those two tiles. [KNOCKING SOUNDS] [SCRAPING SOUNDS] Now I've just about
finished laying my tiles. I've pre-cut this
tile trim, and that's going to sit right at
the front of there just underneath our tiles. Now, that gets glued down
with our tile adhesive. So I'm going to put
down the adhesive, lay the tiles as per norm. [SLAPPING NOISES] [SCRAPING SOUNDS] [SLAPPING NOISES] Rightio. That's looking
absolutely fantastic. Now we want to leave that
for at least 24 hours before we do
anything else to it. OK. It's been 24 hours, now I'm
just about ready to pop out my spacers, and I'm
just going to clean up any adhesive that might be
stuck to the edge of my tiles. To do that, I'm
just going to use one of these little
trusty utility knives. Scrape out any adhesive. Remove the tiles spacers. And give the tiles a vacuum
to prep the area for grouting. [VACUUMING SOUNDS] Now, when you are
mixing the grout, just make sure you read
the instructions properly. OK. Now when it comes
to your grouting, you want to start from
your furthest point and just work out of the room. Take a little bit of that
grout on the grout [INAUDIBLE],, drop that down, and you
want to actually work in a 45 sort of degree motion. You don't want to come down
the length of your tiles. Otherwise you're going to
end up dragging it out. And really just try
and work that grout in as deep as you can
in between the tiles. Now, we have chosen to match
our grout color to the tiles, but that's up to
individual preference. It's a good idea to note
the color of your grout in case you need to
replace a tile and regrout. OK. I know this looks
a little bit messy. Don't worry about that. We actually want this
to dry just to the point where it starts to look
dusty, and then we're going to come back
and clean it all off. OK. Now when you're moving
the excess grout, you just want to get this
sponge nearly completely dry, and in the same fashion
as we put the grout in, we're going to remove the
excess on a 45 degree. Now, you don't want too
much water in your sponge. Otherwise we're going to get
air bubbles in our grout. Now, when you are
removing the excess grout, just make sure you do one
side of your sponge per swipe. OK. Now we can't get all
that off in one hit. What we're going to do is let
that dust off again, and then come back and give
it another sponge. OK. We'll come back for
a second pass now. It's really important, we
don't want too much moisture on the sponge, and
all we're going to do is just take off the excess. OK. Everything's looking
nice and clean. Our next step is
putting on our silicone. Now, I've chosen
a silicone that's going to also color
match to our grout. So all I'm going to do is work
from the corner back towards me on a 45 degree angle. Let's just gently
squeeze that out. OK. I'm now just going to take
off our excess silicone, To do that, I've got this nice
little silicone applicator tool. Now, before I do
that, I'm just going to use a spray bottle here
with some soapy water on it. And what that's going to do is
help remove the excess silicone and leave it nice and clean. And there we have it. We've transformed this kitchen
with a brand new tiled floor. It looks great, didn't cost
the earth, and was easy as.
