I slogged all of the supplies into our kitchen on February 22nd. We picked them up from the Tile Shop a few weeks earlier and had left some in the back of our truck and stored the rest in our garden shed. The laundry room and day rooms are on the second floor, but we didn't have enough space upstairs to store the materials. Plus, just hauling them into the house was exhausting! It was a snowy, icy day, too.
"Mom, where did all this black hair come from?? You're doing a good job of cleaning it up, though!"
Here is a view into the laundry room. The subfloor is 3/4-inch OSB (Oriented Strand Board). The joists are 12-inches on center, which is much stiffer than normal construction because we were thinking of putting a jacuzzi into the dayroom. Thank goodness we came to our senses before going down THAT road. Conley Construction did all of the rough-out, plumbing, wiring, and drywall work on the addition. We have done all the work on our house in the past, but couldn't handle a two-story addition. The square opening is for a laundry hatch from the back of our walk-in closet.
When we tiled our second floor bathroom years ago we used DuraRock, a concrete board that was heavy and difficult to cut. On this project we used Georgia-Pacific DensShield, which is much lighter and cuts with a utility knife.
The product's strength comes from fiberglass embedded directly in the substrate.
Samba inspecting my cut-line.
Samba taking a closer look at DensShield...
The DIY Tiling DVD showed a happy home-owner cutting and laying ONE piece of DensShield. Laying out two full rooms is a bit more work...
Here are the tools we used for installing the DensShield, which is laid over a bed of thinset and then screwed in with special tile backer screws. We got all of our supplies from The Tile Shop. We went this route to make sure we got everything we needed and in the right quantities. This worked out well. My one quibble is that I don't like their tile backer screws and ended up using square-drive HandiBacker screws from Home Depot. Also, the Tile Shop people insisted that 1.25 inches screws were the correct size. I got 1&5/8 inch screws from Home Depot and liked the longer length better.
Here is some of the thinset, troweled on with a 1/4x1/4 square tooth trowel before the DensShield board is laid in.
All the DensShield installed. We mapped out the DensShield layout ahead of time and placed a narrower section in the center of the room to avoid awkward, small pieces near the entrance.
The next step was to establish a layout grid. It comes as a surprise to homeowners who haven't done a lot of remodeling, but rooms aren't square. This means if you lay tile from one corner and head for the opposite end of the room by the time you get there you have major spacing and layout problems.
The solution is to establish 2 baselines at precise right angles running the length and width of the layout area, sliding them back and forth as necessary to ensure that one wall doesn't end up with small, odd-sized tile pieces. Once placed, the baselines are used to establish a grid on some multiple number of tiles. We chose 3x3 tile squares (initally 36-inch squares).
Samba is inspecting our baseline positioning. He's impressed.
Here is the completed grid. Well, what we thought was the completed grid.
We decided to layout the entire room, cutting all the side pieces, etc. before setting any tile. This picture shows a partial layout. We actually did the whole floor (except cutting the edges), then decided we didn't like the long vertical rows and needed another plan. At which point, we took a wine break...
We decided to offset each row by 1/3rd tile, which hid the verticals. This left horizontal lines crossing the room, but they are not obtrusive.
Here is a detail of the grid showing offset lines -- we snapped the grid with a blue chalkline. After laying the darn thing out the second time, we decided the gaps between the tile were a bit wide, and decided it would be shrewder to use a metric sized grid because the tile squares were 30cm. (Couple of geniuses.) We resnapped the grid (after sponging off the original excepting baselines) using 91 cm squares. This worked perfectly.
DensShield has to be taped and bedded in before tile is set on it. The fiberglass mesh tape has adhesive to hold it in place until thinset is trowled over it.
This picture shows all the joints bedded in.
I'm shown here mixing thinset for tiling. This is a higher grade thinset than what we used for the DensShield, and it is also a lighter color which will blend in better with the grout color. Details like this is why it is a good idea to get all your supplies from the tile vendor. At least for places like The Tile Shop, which are set up to work with home owners. I'm using a Milwaukee 1/2-inch right-angle drill to mix the thinset. A right angle drill can do anything a straight drill can, plus a lot more. It's an invaluable tool for home remodelers. Milwaukee makes one of the best.
We used three buckets. One for the thinset; one to rinse off the mixer and tools; and one for fresh water to mix the thinset. I used a 4-inch margin trowel in combination with the 1/4-inch square tooth trowel. This is shorter than the 8 to 12-inch margin trowel often recommended, but is much easier to handle.
I hesitated to include this picture, because I prefer for my albums to be "family-oriented." On the otherhand, if you're thinking about doing your own tile you need to know the naked truth. They call these things wetsaws for a reason! We put ours in a morter skid to control the water (it being icy outside). Rubber gloves are not optional unless you enjoy abraded and bleeding finger tips.
Here I'm applying thinset with the 1/4x1/4 square tooth trowl. Do not skimp on knee pads. Get the best grade available. (I got mine from Home Depot, actually, not from the Tile Shop.) Also, I mixed the thinset on the thicker side of "tooth paste" consistency to minimize problems with it oozing up between the joints (and having to be cleaned off!).
We got the laundry room and first four rows of the day room done on our first day of setting tile. We divided the work up so that I did the troweling and setting and Elly did all of the shifting and pattern matching. It is really critical to have one person paying attention to this on a complicated layout. We set all the tile without mislaying a single piece. Our second day went much more quickly because we had established a work pattern and knew our individual roles.
We finished setting the tile on March 18. We still have to seal the tile, add the grout, and then add a second coat of sealer. But the really heavy work is done.
