Installing TILE FLOOR for the FIRST TIME 🛠 How To Lay Tile Floor

what's going on everybody I'm Johnny Brook welcome back to their craft and worship video and welcome to my laundry room so in this video I'm gonna show you how to pulled up the crappy a vinyl floor that was in here and replace it with this brand new tile flooring from Lowe's who is the sponsor of this week's video and this was my first time ever doing tile so originally this video was gonna be part of my laundry room makeover but I decided to split them up because there's just so much information I think especially for people who are new to tile I did a ton of research I still made plenty of mistakes and I really tried to tailor the information in this video for people who are new to tile work so hopefully it's helpful hopefully you enjoyed the video and let's go and get started with a project our laundry room was one of the spaces that was the most undated when we moved into our new house it had crappy looking vinyl flooring wire shelving poor lighting and even the carpet directly outside of the laundry room didn't match the rest of the carpet in the hallway all that to say my wife and I definitely wanted to make some changes to this laundry room area so the first step in this project as with any other room makeover was to get everything out of the room I picked out a new washer and dryer from Lowe's and when the new units were delivered I had the delivery guys leave the new units in the hallway outside of the laundry room so that I could work on the floor next i vacuumed up all of the lint and other crap off of the flooring and then I could get started removing it and I thought this would be a super easy task but boy was I wrong - first I removed the cord around by scouring the caulk between the cord around and baseboard and then prying it off with a pry bar and I was planning to replace this anyway so I wasn't particularly careful here so just the tip after removing anything with nails in it like this cord around oh I make sure to flatten all of the nails so I don't inadvertently stab myself later in the project or when I'm throwing all this stuff away later and as you can see the vinyl flooring actually started to peel back as I was removing part of the cord around so I thought I was in the clear but then I saw more vinyl flooring underneath it and we'll get to that in a second anyway with the trim removed I went to remove the transition between the vinyl and carpet and quickly realized that this transition strip was permanently attached to the car well as I mentioned this section of carpet was mismatched anyway so I decided to just go ahead and rip it out and this hallway will be getting hardwood flooring at some point so that wasn't a huge deal I cut the ends of this section of carpet pulling him back from the tack strip and then rolled it up and removed it and I repeated the process for the carpet pad and then I could remove the tack strips and the key when removing tack strips is to pry up on the nails holding them down so the tack strips don't break into a bunch of pieces this way you can remove the strips all in one piece and it goes much quicker with the carpet out of the way I could finally go about removing the flooring from the laundry room and unfortunately as I mentioned there was another layer of flooring beneath that top layer and it looks like the previous owner had damaged the floor and just decided to cover it up rather than try and fix it no worries I figured removing the bottom layer of flooring would be easy enough but that was not really the case so for some reason this vinyl flooring had been adhered to an eighth inch layer plywood and that was attached to the subfloor with hundreds of narrow crown staples I still don't understand why they didn't attach the flooring directly to the subfloor but removing the plywood and vinyl itself was pretty straightforward once I got a larger pry bar removing the staples on the other hand was a royal pain and I know there are scrapers out there that might have been able to remove some of these but these staples were not your typical carpet pad staples these were over an inch long narrow crown staples like cabinet shops used for drawer box assembly the best tool I found for removing these things was a pair of diagonal pliers and they were able to grip onto the heads of the staples and then I could just use leverage to pry the staples out if I tried to just brute force the staples with vice grips I ended up working to a heck of a lot harder I also might have been able to found the staples flush with a hammer but I knew I was gonna have to sand down some high spots and I really didn't want to be burning through sanding belts and sending sparks flying all over the place all right ready anyway after getting all of those staples removed I wanted to have a little bit of fun so I decided to try cleaning out our dryer vent using a method I'd seen online an electric leaf blower and this worked surprisingly well [Music] after cleaning out the dryer vent I could check the subfloor for any high spots and as I expected there was a pretty decent hump right at the front of the room I marked the high spots and then went at them with a belt sander and getting your subfloor flat is especially important with large format tiles like the ones I used since an uneven subfloor will tend to cause leakage or unevenness between the edges of the tiles once the subfloor was reasonably flat I could move on to the actual tile work and first I needed to prep the subfloor for tile and you don't want to lay tile directly on an OSP sub floor as the OSB will expand and contract at a different rate than the tile and you'll end up with cracking to deal with this you need to cover the subfloor with either cement board or use an uncoupling membrane which is what I went with this orange plastic sheeting called Detra is made by Schluter and is available in these smaller roles that are great for a smaller space like this one and the purpose of this product is to uncouple your tile from the subfloor which allows the subfloor whether that's concrete or wood to expand and contract while allowing the tile to stay put which reduces cracking any way to install this Schluter ditra I first needed to cut a few sections to size to fit in the space and since this stuff is plastic it cuts easily with a utility knife or scissors once I have the pieces fit I can go ahead and start dry fitting the tile and for this project I went with this really nice-looking 12 by 24 inch large-format tile from the Mohawk forever style line from Lowe's and this tile is waterproof stain proof and scratch resistant so it's great for high-traffic areas and Mohawk uses a proprietary where yard glaze to give it this added durability it also comes in a bunch of different styles that you can mix and match but this cream arbol pattern was my favorite and looks pretty awesome in my opinion so the first step in dry fitting the tile was to figure out how much I was gonna need to rip off the first row of tile and as it turned out these tiles fit almost perfectly in this face padded the tiles with a 3/16 inch spacer which is the gap I was leaving for the grout between each of them as well as between the first tile on the wall and luckily I only needed to remove about 7/8 of an inch from the first row to have the tile in where I wanted it next I removed the Detra temporarily so that I can mark out the center point of the room as well as the offset I was going with and on a larger room you would mark these signs with a chalk line and also install your tile from the center of the room but honestly on a room this small it was easier to just mark my lines with permanent marker and install them starting in the back of the room also on large format tile like this you don't want an offset greater than 33% otherwise you'll end up with more lipid and that means your typical brick pattern with a 50% offset will not really work with large format tile I went with a 6-inch offset which worked out to about 25% and I think this looks great and also meant I ended up with very little tile waste with my offset laid out I could start marking tiles to be cut and if you wash my laminate and vinyl flooring install videos this is essentially the same process to mark where to cut I would flip the tiles around 180 degrees place a set of spacers between the wall and the tile and then use another spacer at the end I would be cutting to know where to mark my line and this would just ensure that I'd have the correct gap on both sides of the tile once it was cut I marked the tiles at each into this first row and then headed downstairs to make my cuts and I used a tile saw here but honestly a manual snack cutter would have worked fine for about 90% of the cuts on this project it would have also meant that I could have made these cuts inside rather than having to bring the tile downstairs through a gauntlet of three different baby gates anyway I first cut the two tiles on the ins two lengths and then I ripped all four of the tiles in this first row to width after making my cuts I could go back and fit the tiles and somehow I miss marked one of the tile so I had to trim off a little sliver and then I could finally dry fit that first row with the first row in I could just continue repeating the same process on the next two rows adding spacers marking for my cut making my cuts and then dry fitting the tiles when I got to the last row I needed to undercut the door jamb and trim before I could get the tile fit to do this I took a scrap piece of Detra and a tile and used that as a guide for my oscillating tool and in retrospect I should have added more space here to account for the thin set as I ran into some issues with this gap being too tight later on and I think a second layer of vitro would have done the trick here once the door jamb was undercut I marked where I needed to notch out the tile making sure the cut edges would end up under the jamb and trim and then made the cut with the tile saw and these notch cuts are really where the tile saw came in handy and if you don't own a tile saw you could also just rent one for a project like this finally with the last two tiles dry fit all of my cuts were done and the floor was looking really good the last thing to cut before the actual tile install was this transition strip which is called a Schluter strip and this gives the tile a nice finished edge and since it's aluminum cuts really easily with a standard Microsoft before removing all the tiles I labeled them with some painters tape and permanent marker so that I could easily put them back in the right spot when it came time to install the tile I also vacuumed the subfloor again just to make sure nothing was going to interfere with the tile with that I can move on to actually laying the tile which was something I was honestly pretty nervous about to help me get the thinset consistency right I decided to go with this thin set mortar system from Mapai which I picked up at Lowe's and it clearly outlines the liquid to powder ratio so in this case I was using this polymer additive as my liquid rather than water as it helps to thins that bond to the subfloor better so I used the entire two gallon container and then I used this uncoupling membrane mortar which again called for the entire bag to be used and this made the mixing mask really easy but also meant I had a very full bucket and that first stir with the battle made a bit of a mess anyway I mixed this inset for a few minutes making sure everything was nicely incorporated and then let the thinset sit for about five minutes and this rest period gives the thinset time to absorb the moisture and smooth out and this is called slaking and is extremely important so after slaking for five minutes I mixed the thinset again and then it was ready to use that was of course after bringing this sixty pound bucket of thin-set upstairs before applying the thinset I wiped down my sub floor with a damp sponge and this both cleans any remaining dust off of the subfloor but also wets it slightly just to ensure the subfloor doesn't suck up too much moisture out of the thinset and you might be thinking but what about the uncoupling membrane I thought we couldn't attach the tile directly to the subfloor and that is correct this first layer of thin-set is to adhere the membrane itself to the subfloor not the tile and as you can see as I laid the thin set I really tried to work it into the subfloor to make sure I ended up with a good bond after working in the thin set I added a slightly thicker layer and then used the knotch side of my trowel to comb the thin set and the Schluter system requires one of a few specific notch patterns so just make sure to follow the directions there looking back at this I probably needed a slightly thicker layer of thin-set but again this was my first time ever laying down mortar with the tin set in place I could add the first piece of the membrane I laid it in place and then worked the membrane into the thin set with a rubber grout float this membrane has a fleece backing that bonds with the thin set and it's extremely important that it's worked into the sin set well after going over the membrane with my grout float I had peeled back an edge to see how even the coverage was and I could see that I had some bare spots around the edges especially so I went back and added more thin set and then just repeated that same process and you can see that the front edge was peeling back when I didn't have enough thin set but stayed flat once I added more after finishing the first section I repeated the same process for the other section which went a little bit smoother since I was getting more comfortable with the trowel once the second section was in place I removed any excess thinset and then I could start laying the tile and this was essentially more of the same process except that I needed to use a different trowel with a bigger knotch pattern since I was using large format tiles and the notches in the thin set allowed the air to escape from beneath the tiles and these larger notches give that air more room to escape with the larger tiles also the notches should be running perpendicular to the longest edge of the tile again to allow that air to escape you don't want to have your notches running in different directions and especially not in a swirling pattern as air will get trapped the tile won't bond properly and you'll end up with weak tiles one other thing I needed to do here was fill in that waffle pattern on the membrane to make sure there was enough thin set so the tiles bonded well when spreading the thin set I would only work in sections that I could get tile on to within about 15 minutes as I didn't want the thinset setting up before I could get the tile set in place setting the tile was easy I just put the tile in place wiggled the tile side-to-side which collapses those notches and really bonds that tile with the thinset and then I added spacers around the tile to keep it from moving around when I added the next tile one other thing I probably should have done was what's called back buttering where you spread a thin layer of thin-set on the back of the tile before placing it and this is especially important on large format tiles so that you get even coverage and it's something I honestly just completely forgot to do so I just kept working my way down the line adding more tiles and spacers until I got to the last row which is where I ran into a little bit of trouble so as I mentioned earlier I didn't quite understand trim enough and this made sliding the tiles into place under the trim extremely difficult and the left side went in okay but the right side just wouldn't go all the way in without some assistance and I had the bright idea to use a hammer using some of the D tres padding and surprise surprise I needed I'm cracking the tile so after having a mild panic attack I had to recut the tile on the fly while the thinset was setting up and this made for a pretty stressful moment luckily I was able to get the tile cut quickly and actually got it in place with just a little bit of persuasion and then I could place that last tile and before I did that I also needed to add that transition strip which I should have done before laying the last row of tile and the strip goes between the tile and the membrane and is held in place by the thinset once the strip was in place I could lay the last tile also refreshing that thin set and you can see that there was a little bit of lipid between that tile below the trim and the center tile and this was again because the trim was pushing down on the tile causing it to lift slightly and I didn't feel like they were as much I could do at this point and so I just left it alone after setting that last tile and breathing a sigh of relief I cleaned up any excess thinset from the subfloor between the tiles and on the baseboards and then I let it set up for about 24 hours the next day I removed all the spacers and painters tape as well as any thin set that I might have missed and I found that the scouring pad on a kitchen sponge did a really great job here as well as a putty knife for any bits between the tiles the next step in the tile process was grouting which really gives the tile a finished look I went with this pre-mixed grout another Mathai product from Lowe's and the nice thing is that it doesn't need to be sealed afterwards since it already has a sealer mixed in adding the grout was a pretty simple process first I wiped down a section with a damp sponge to make sure no other debris was on the surface of the tile and then I started working the grout into the seams between the tiles and you really want to work the grout in to make sure the joints are completely filled with grout otherwise it might end up settling as it dries and leaving you with voids after working the grout into the joints I scraped across the tile at a 45 degree angle from the grout lines to remove the excess grout after scraping off the excess I gave the grout five to ten minutes to set up before cleaning the rest off with a sponge and I actually grouted about 3/4 of the entire floor before going back with a sponge and I think this ended up being a little bit too long as the grout was kind of difficult to remove with the sponge in retrospect I probably would have only done about half the floor at a time once again when removing the grout with the sponge I wiped across the face of the tile at a 45-degree angle to the grout lines and I didn't really need to use a ton of pressure here also my sponge was damp but not dripping wet and if you add too much water it'll have the tendency to lift the color from the grout I just continued working my way around the floor removing the excess grout and also added the grout to the last section as well as in the gap the transition strip has built in and then I could let the grout set up for another 24 hours as I mentioned I think I've let the grout set up for a little bit too long before wiping it off so I was left with some bits of excess grout on the surface of the tiles along with a little bit of haze and I think this is pretty typical to remove the haze I used this tile cleaner and I poured it on and spread it around with a sponge let it sit for a few minutes and then came back and scrubbed any problem areas with the scouring pad on the sponge after scrubbing I went over the entire floor with my grout sponge to remove any excess cleaner and then dried off the floor with a towel alright hopefully you guys enjoyed this one I am pretty happy with the way this floor came together it's not perfect by any means but I think it looks really great still and honestly most of its gonna be covered up by those laundry machines again hopefully you guys enjoyed this one if you aren't already go ahead and get subscribed I put out new project videos like this pretty much every week I'll be putting out the second part of this laundry room makeover video later this week probably on Sunday so stay tuned for that also ring that little notification bell so don't miss my future videos I'll have links to all the tools and materials I use down the video description below including this beautiful Mohawk forever style tile from Lowe's and last I want to say a big shout-out to my youtube members if you guys want to support me you can go check that out as well alright thanks for watching everybody and until next week happy building look

Channel: Crafted Workshop

Views: 6,482,135

Keywords: crafted workshop, diy, howto, how-to, how to tile a floor, home improvement, tile installation, tile floor, tile floor installation, tile bathroom, floor tile, how to install wood look tile, tile a floor, tile floor installation bathroom, ceramic tile, laying tile, tiling a floor, tiling for beginners, tiling and grouting a floor, how to cut tiles, large format tile, floor tiling for beginners, how to tile a bathroom, how to tile, first tile, tiling a bathroom

Id: h6AABdEfpwI

Length: 18min 58sec (1138 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2019