My wife and I have replaced bathroom tile before. It is actually not that hard to do. Most of the time, you can complete a project for a fraction of what it would cost you to have it done professionally. Once you know how to do it properly, you can do just as good of a job as a professional.

The Demolition Process

Remove the existing flooring or tile. If you don’t like the flooring that you have in your bathroom, you might enjoy tearing it out. If you have tile, you’re going to want to use a vibrating chisel, or a small sledgehammer and a flat screwdriver. If you are just pulling up linoleum, make sure that you get it all up and that you clean off the glue residue, before putting down your tiles.

Installing Bathroom Tile

After you have gotten rid of all of the unwanted flooring, you should be left with a level surface when installing bathroom tile. If you have wood underneath for your subflooring, make sure to add a few extra screws to keep the plywood from moving around. If it moves around, it could cause your tiles to pop out of the floor. If you have cement, make sure that it is level and clean before you start putting down your mortar and tiles.


The next step when you are tiling a bathroom floor, is to take a chalk line. Using the length and the width of your room, find the middle of the floor. Most professional tile installers will start installing tile in the middle of the floor, and then work their way to the edges. This helps them to install it straight. The first few tiles that you install are going to be very important because they will dictate how the rest of your tiles will look.

The next thing you want to do is mix your mortar paste in a 5 gallon bucket. Using a float with a quarter inch, or a 1/8 inch wedge, spread the paste evenly on your floor. Use spacers in between the tiles to make sure that they are properly spaced.

When you are learning how to tile a bathroom floor, you never want to walk on it to push it in place. Rather, you just want to slide it into place, and then push on it lightly with your hands. This way, you can make sure that the mortar helps to hold the tiles in place. You want the tiles to be as level as possible. It is okay to go slow, and make sure that everything is even and level. Make sure to use a wet saw to cut any tiles that need to be cut before they are installed.
It should take about 48 to 72 hours for the tile mortar to cure. After they are fully cured, you should use a grout paste to fill in all of the grout lines. After the grout lines have cured, then you’ll want to add a grout sealer as the final step.

Here’s another article you might also like:

*How to Grout Tile

By learning how to install granite tile countertops, you can greatly improve the value of your kitchen. Doing the work yourself can save you more than a $10,000 and it can also be fun. But you can easily upgrade these by installing new granite countertops. Granite is nice because it has a three-dimensional feet. It will also help to modernize your kitchen.

Stage I – Demolition of Kitchen Countertops

Most of the time, your kitchen will have old porcelain tiles. If this is the case, you will want to start out by removing all of the existing tiles. The best way to remove these is with a sledgehammer, and a chisel. If you want to do it even faster you should buy or rent a pneumatic chisel. Especially if you have a lot of tile to remove. Hopefully, you’ll find that the cement base that is underneath the tile is still good enough that you can reuse it. If you can reuse it, then you’ll just want to apply new mortar to the top of it, and then install your tiles. If it is in bad condition, or is extremely uneven, you’ll want to tear out the cement, and possibly even replace the plywood that is underneath it. Make sure that you have a flat surface to work on before you start applying the mortar.

Stage II – New Tile Installation

When you’re learning how to install granite tile countertops, you want to start making a dry placement of your tiles. This is kind of exciting things you can see sort of what it will look like when it is done. Plus, once you are ready to begin your new installation, you are halfway done with your project.

When you are placing your granite tiles make sure that you keep in mind that you are going to want them to overlap the edge of the countertop by slightly more than the width of a tile. I think it is a good idea to go ahead and mark all of your lines. It is a good idea to use a chalk line, or a straight edge and a pencil to help you draw these lines. Make sure that when using wet saw it will not overheat or break while you’re using to cut it with. Hiring someone to cut your tile for you might be a good idea, but it will also be expensive. People who cut and polished tile for a living generally charge at least $10 per foot.

Then, find out how much you’re going to need to cut off of all of your tiles in order to get them to fit properly. Please keep in mind that granite is very hard. It may take you a little bit of time to cut through it. Plus, you’re going to need to use a very sharp diamond blade saw in order to do it.

The next step is to make sure to mix your mortar up properly. If you wet your plywood down, before you apply the mortar, it won’t dry as quickly. This is a pretty good suggestion even if you are doing floor tiles. After you have the top of the countertop placed, you want to take the time to polish up the narrow pieces you’re going to use for the bottom edge of your countertop so that they will look finished. In order to do this, you’re going to need to buff the tiles with a powerful floor sander. This video does an excellent job at explaining how to do it. You want to start out with a course grade for sanding and then work your way down to a fine grade. Eventually you will use a buffer to buffer the services and make them shine.

after your mortar is mixed together properly, use float with quarter inch ridges to spread it evenly onto your tiled area. When you are installing your tile, you need to include spacers and also make sure that the surface of the tile is even. Make sure to follow your lines as accurately as possible.

Stage III- Grout the Tiles, Seal Them

The next stage is to seal your tile grout. You need to seal your granite anyway so that it won’t be so porous, you can seal your grout lines at the same time, using the same sealer. Make sure to follow the directions as indicated on the label of the grout sealer that you purchase.

I recommend using DuPont’s stone tech sealer to get the job done right. You can use either a spray on grout sealer or you can use a brush on grout sealer. The advantage of using a brush on grout sealer is that it is less expensive and you can put it on a little bit thicker. You may need to do two or three coats before you have it properly sealed. You can test this out by spraying the surface with water and when it is properly sealed, it should bead on the surface. Sealing your grout is a good way to prevent it from getting stained. It will also help to keep the grout lines clean and help your grout to last for a long longer.

It is important to know the difference between sanded versus unsanded grout. Both of these types of grout joint compounds are derived from Portland cement. One type is called sanded or “rough” grout, and the next type is called unsanded or “smooth” grout.

Now the type of grout you should use does not depend on how you want the tiles to look, and it does not even depend on the type of stone or tile you are installing. It only depends on the width of the grout lines. If you are installing tile that has joints that are 1/8 inch or larger, then you should use sanded grout. If they are under 1/8th inch, you should definitely use unsanded grout.

The reason why you should use sanded grout when you have larger joints, is that over time, the compound with the sand in it will not shrink. If you try and use unsanded grout, you end up with your grout shrinking, and it will no longer work as efficiently as it should to hold your tiles in place and to prevent them from getting damaged. If you ended up using unsanded grout for quarter inch grout lines, you will definitely have to re-grout, and you may even have to replace the tiles entirely.

Likewise, if you try and use  sanded grout with a very narrow joint space of less than 1/8 of an inch, you are not going to be able to get enough of the actual compound into the joint to hold it together ( a lot of times, the grains of sand will just fall out.)

Most professional tile installers understand the difference between sanded versus unsanded grout. If they don’t, they probably have not been installing tile very long. Or, it is possible that they specialize in either installing exclusively large tiles or installing small ones. Either way, I would suggest that if you want to hire a professional installer, it should be someone who obviously knows what he is doing, and someone who has a lot of experience in installing both large and small types of tile and grout.

Epoxy Grout Versus Sanded And Unsanded Grout

An epoxy grout is a very high quality grout that is very resistant to water. It is not porous like most types of grout, and will not even absorb stains or pet odors very easily. It is like having sanded grout for thin grout joints, only it uses very miniscule grains as fillers rather than sand. This keeps the grout joints from shrinking after they are installed. Epoxy grout is expensive and a lot of times, it isn’t justified by the cost. 90% of the time, it is probably not even needed, because regular grout compound works perfectly fine. However, if you find that you are constantly being attacked by mold and mildew, and you decide to redo your grout, it may be a good idea to use epoxy grout. Also, it may be a good idea to use epoxy grout on your counter tops since you probably don’t want to have counter tops that are absorbing stuff all the time.

If you have any other questions related to sanded versus unsanded grout, please be sure to ask us in the comment section of this article. We will try and answer your questions as soon as we can and get back to you with accurate and authoritative answers every time.

This site is a good  reference, and we suggest that you also check it out: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg100743484245.html

More suggested readings: How To Grout Ceramic Tile and How To Grout Bathroom Tile