Tiling the bathroom

[Minibiker]

Good evening all,

First of all, please ignore the old skool look of our bathroom please we have just been accepted a home swap with my father in law, it's my wife's childhood home which her parents have had for 40+ years, her dad was close to giving it up due to costs and having 3 bedrooms for just him, It's going to take a lot of work to get it up to scratch but one room at a time and it'll be lovely and homely,

My question is how straight forward is it to tile, I want to have a crack at it myself, not the full bathroom just where the tiles are now, maybe slightly higher....

Is it difficult? Is it a case of rip old tiles off and scrape back the walls flat then re-tile?

 

[Bounce]

it’s not particularly hard, but if you want a good finish your better off employing someone who does it professionally.

Edit : also you need to factor in getting the right tools and the extra time it will take you to do it. If you looking to tile in the same area in your photo it would probably take half a day for someone professional to do it, but if it was you who never done tiling before than it would take about two days.

 

[Minibiker]

it’s not particularly hard, but if you want a good finish your better off employing someone who does it professionally.

Edit : also you need to factor in getting the right tools and the extra time it will take you to do it. If you looking to tile in the same area in your photo it would probably take half a day for someone professional to do it, but if it was you who never done tiling before than it would take about two days.

Cheers for the reply bud, my brother has his tiling company but never has the time spare to come down to do it which would be spot on

Maybe I'll have to get some quotes for it to be done properly

 

[vail3r]

Tiling isn’t too hard if you take your time. Dry cut everything before sticking them on the wall.

You’d want to have a decent wall to tile on though so depends how bad the wall ends up after the old ones come off

 

[mickyflinn]

Using larger tiles helps with less joints and cuts and imo looks nicer and never tile onto the bath, leave a gap for expansion and silicone.

 

[200sols]

That little section will be easy. A nice first tiling job IMO.

The biggest problem you'll have is getting the existing wall flat to tile on, removing old adhesive etc. If it doesn't come off easily I'd just cut it out and reboard those sections.

Get some tiling wedges, leave a 2mm gap between the bath and tiles by tiling onto the wedges. Wedges are also handy for ensuring its all level when tiling off of a bath. Once it's all set remove wedges and grout the tiles and silicone the join to the bath and the corners.

Get a cheapo tile cutter and use ceramic tiles and you'll find it pretty simple stuff.

 

[sigma]

There's no simple option. If you pay someone you are unlikely for it to be a good job unless you know them or they are recommended (even this isn't a guarantee).

Tiling yourself sounds simple but remember you are doing it for the first time, it will take longer - it's simple to people have done it lots of times. You are unlikely to get it done as good as a good professional unless you take a lot of time.

There may be unforseen issues too, the walls might not be straight nor plumb, you might rip off parts of the wall/plaster above the tiles, you might uncover poor previous work underneath, you might rip off plasterboard behind the tiles.

It does all sound simple and looks simple when you watch people doing it on YT - but it's not always that straight forward. All things can be overcome but may take longer than simply pulling it all down and putting it all back in within 20 mins.

I had a go before and wasn't that happy with how my practice attempt came out. The tiles had moved and weren't level either, never got on with tile levelling kits, probably (definitely) neded more practice. I bought a mixer to DIY mix the grout and adhesive. It is a messy job too, lots of dust and you'll drop adhesive too.

If you plan to stay there, I'd tile the entire walls around the bath as a minimum. They only do low level tiling to save costs.