My tiling job

[spokeshave]

Just finished my first (and hopefully last) tiling job.
Never done any sort of tiling before and chose a first off effort of approx 50 square meters. Involved the lounge, kitchen, dining and hallway, just about the whole house. Was much harder than i thought. Spent nearly 7 days straight on the job, with almost a whole day spent removing the glue left on the concrete from the lino.
I can now see how the pro's charge what they do. My back and knees just about packed it in!!!!
We are pretty happy with our first up effort and thought i would share it with you guys.

First two pics are before (dining) and the next two after the job has been finished.

[spokeshave]

Here are a couple of pregress photos.

First pic is of all the glue that i had to scrape off the floor. What a pain that was.

Next pic is of dining/ lounge area part way through the job. Some may be horrified by our technique but it worked for us. We found it easier to loose lay tiles on the floor first through the middle of the lounge then into the dining and down the middle of the hall (all rooms are linked). When we were happy with how all the tiles lined up against all walls (square with minimal cutting required) then marked the concrete and layed them down permanently. Very complicated and often confusing but it worked.

Last is the dining room with no furniture.

[Jacksin]

It looks good Spokeshave.

My first attempt at doing a large area (160m2) seemed to take for ever with the missus, 2 teenagers and 4 bloody dogs all wanting to walk where I was working. I did mine different by having a staggered joint to alleviate a boring pattern and should anyone look at it with a critical eye.

[spokeshave]

Jesus Christ, 160m2. That's a big job.

I consider myself very fortunate that the missus was a huge help and not a hindrance. We have done alot of work around the house together that would have taken forever on my own. We make a great team.

We thought about having a staggered pattern but thought it would just complicate an already duanting job.

Here are the pics of the glue in the dining room that mysteriously dissappeared from my second post.

[drummelars]

YOWSER 160sqm dam thats alot.

good job anyway looks good

[drummelars]

spoke what made you lay it out in that T Shape in the second photo???

did you chalk line ETC??

looks #### loads better than the lino. im doing my lounge and hall will post pics in a week or 2

[vlv8vic]

sensational job mate. you can come and do mine if you like!?! i swear i only have a few m2 to do but having never done it im already scared....

[spokeshave]

Drummelars, the photo you refer to is a little misleading as it was taken part way through doing the job.

We started the job in the lounge (top/left of photo) and wanted to know where the tiles would end up sitting down the hall (the hall is at right angles to the dining to the right of the photo) so we loosely lay a double row of tiles from the lounge through the dining room to the hall. Our main concern was having to contend with a thin sliver of tiles on one side of the hall and half a tile on the other, we wanted them to be roughly centered. Being happy with where they sat we marked out and glued the row down permanently ending up with what you see below.

We then wanted to lay some tiles in the dining and basically 1/4rd the room starting with the row that formed the T you refered to. Shortly after the pic of the T was taken we filled in the gaps to the walls toward the piece of form ply lying on the floor and ended up with half the dining room complete. That was followed with working toward and completing the kitchen.

Hopefully that didn't cofuse you too much.

[bystander]

VLV8VIC
Approach the job with confidence. Don't fiddle around, the tiles lay better when you just put them down, spread the adhesive over an area you can manage but don't make it too small, you didn't say if you were going horizontal or vertical

Just do it..

[spokeshave]

umm, i somehow deleted all my attatchments. I'll try to repost them.

[spokeshave]

Here they are again for those who missed them.