How to Tile a Floor

By: John Banta and Thomas Baker, This Old House magazine

Shopping List

Supplies You Will Need

1. CERAMIC FLOOR TILE

2. THINSET MORTAR

3. TILE GROUT

4. TILE SPACERS
used to ensure consistent joints

5. MIXING PADDLE
used in drill to mix up mortar and grout

6. KNEE PADS

7. FOAM SPONGE
for wiping up grout haze

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Tools List
Tools You Will Need
- 10-foot straightedge (for aligning tile
- Rubber float (for spreading grout
- Notched trowel (for spreading adhesive
- Rubbing stone (for smoothing cut tile edges
- Drill-driver and epoxy-coated screws,
  to secure backerboard to subfloor
- Mason's trowel (for mixing thinset and grout
- Margin trowel (for cleaning cured joint lines
- Flush-cut hand saw (for undercutting trim
- Tape measure
- Tile cutter
- Power flush-cut saw (for undercutting trim
- Nippers (for breaking off small pieces of tile
- Carbide-tipped scorer and utility knife,
  for cutting backerboard
- Folding A-square,
  for checking squareness of tile layout)
- Diamond blade,
  used with wetsaw to cut corner notches and curves in tile
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Introduction
Overview
Steps:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9

6 to 10 hours to tile an 8x10-foot room
$4 to $8 average price per square foot

Difficulty: Moderate Laying tile can be hard on the knees and back

Joe Ferrante has been laying tile for 30 years - many of them for This Old House - and after all this time, he's still enamored of the material. "I love tile," he says. "It's beautiful and it doesn't require much maintenance."

On a floor, these thin, fragile slices of ceramic require some special care and preparation. Otherwise, they won't survive the parade of feet through an entry or the sudden spills in a bathroom or kitchen, where floors go from bone dry to sopping wet faster than you can say "puddle."

"Anytime I approach a new job, I make sure the area about to be tiled is stiff enough so it won't flex when someone walks on it and that it can stand up to wet-and-dry cycles," says Ferrante. Installed the right way, using some basic tools and techniques, a tile floor should last forever, come hell or high water.