How to tile a wall

Go and get tiling with this Rated People DIY guide ... .

Level of difficulty

Level 3: Advanced

What you need

• Tiles
• Plastic spacers
• Pencil
• Straight length of wood
• Chalk
• Tape measure
• Spirit level
• Small nails
• Hammer
• Battens
• Grout mixture
• Mastic trowel
• Dowel
• Damp sponge
• Crowbar 

The steps to follow

I. Find a starting point to tile your wall
1. Lay a row of tiles on the floor and insert plastic spacers between tiles.
2. Mark the tile spacing on a wooden stick of about 2m (6ft 6in) long. This will be the gauge rod to help you set out your wall accurately. Hold it against the wall to see how the tiles will appear.

II. Set out wall tiles
1. Measure the wall from top to bottom for the vertical centre and left to right for the horizontal centre.
2. Run a chalk line across the horizontal and vertical lines. The point where both lines meet is the wall centre.
3. Position the tip of the gauge rod against the vertical centre point and mark the tile spacing on the wall from top to bottom.
4. Repeat these steps for the horizontal centre point and mark the tile spacing on the wall from left to right.
5. Use the gauge rod to find the best tile arrangement.

III. Pin horizontal and vertical battens
1. Leave a gap of about half a tile's width from the floor.
2. From there, mark a horizontal line starting at the bottom of the wall. Use a spirit level to check if the line is straight.
3. Mark a vertical line from the left hand side of the wall. Again, leave a gap of about half a tile's width from the left-hand side. Check with a spirit level to make sure that the line is straight.
4. Use the gauge rod to check for the position of the vertical and horizontal lines; you’ll be fixing battens on these lines. This step ensures that your tiling arrangement will appear correctly on the wall.
5. Position and nail the battens on these lines, use small nails to fix them. These battens will be used as guides for putting your tiles and can be removed when you've finished tiling.

IV. Fix tiles on the wall
1. Now that your battens are in place, evenly spread some tile adhesive with a tile trowel on the wall. It should be enough to cover an area of about 1m² (10ft²).
2. Hold a plastic spreader at a right angle to create ridges with its teeth on the tile adhesive. The ridges will make it easier for the tiles to adhere to the wall.
3. Bed and press the first tile at the corner of the horizontal and vertical battens.
4. Insert a tile spacer to leave some space from the next tile.
5. Fit the next tile and insert another tile spacer.
6. With a spirit level, check that the row is level.
7. Continue laying the tiles in the same way until you've covered the whole wall.
8. Let the adhesive harden for 24 hours and prise off the battens with a crowbar.
9. Next cut and fit the border tiles.

Note:
To ensure that the border tiles are a perfect fit, place a whole tile on top of the last whole tile in the row. Place another tile on top of this with one edge touching the skirting board, and mark a line on the middle tile against the outside edge of the top tile. The exposed part of the middle tile will then fit the gap perfectly.

10. Apply tile adhesive on the gap area.
11. Press the border tiles and insert tile spacers.
12. Wait for another 24 hours for the adhesive to harden and remove the tile spacers.
13. Spread the grout mixture with a trowel and push it into the gaps between the tiles. Make sure that all gaps are filled.
14. Run a piece of dowel along the grout line to give a concave finish.
15. Wait for about 30 minutes before you use a damp sponge to wipe excess grout mixture from the tiles.
16. Again, clean the whole surface with a damp sponge.
17. Apply a grout sealer to finish off