geometric Victorian tiling advice - Tile Advice

[Acousti]

hello,
I'm new to posting on the forum but have had a good look around and have already found lots of interesting and valuable advice. It seems there are some decidedly baddass experts who contribute! Thank you for the info I have already gleaned and I hope you might be able to help me with a couple of specific questions...

I've decided to take on the challenge of tiling my porch. 1.5m2 on a concrete floor that I've had to completely relay after discovering that floor under the old tiles was knackered.

My tiles are 'olde English tiles' 50mm square and around 9mm thick. Border tiles are 150x50. I plan to do a simple but colourful pattern. I have attached a photo of my plan. The border will b simple green rectangles.

My first question is how thick is my adhesive likely to be. I have a 5mm trowel. Does that mean it'll be 5mm?

I have already levelled the floor using a self leveller but the floor is a bit lower than the ideal height (I think) in order to match the height of the hallway. The self leveller is about 10mm thick already. Would it be ok to put another 8-10mm of self leveller on top of that in order to get to the perfect height? Or is it dodgy to have too thick a layer of self leveller and am I better off just settling with the fact that my porch will be a bit lower than the hallway?

Final question is to do with setting out. tHe walls run off straight, of course, as it's a Victorian house. I plan to lay the front doorway edge and the step around what will be a eleccy cupboard first as I will make that nice and square. Do I then lay the field and put the other borders in at the end or do I lay the border so it fits in nicely and cut the files to fit into the border?
I am planning to slice off some bigger tiles to tidy up the edge between the border and the skirting...

Any help is greatly appreciated as although I have a lot of patience, and hopefully the odd transferable skill from my work as a pastry chef, I am fundamentally an idiot novice...

Photos don't want to upload now but I'll stick them up shortly...

 

[Acousti]

R

 

[Acousti]

View attachment 86311 View attachment 86312 View attachment 86313

 

[Bill]

Re the trowel, get an 8mm one as the adhesive will compress to about 2 or 3mm.

You can build up the leveller but it depends on type.

Make sure your design looks as symmetrical as possible and try and use exactly half diagonal cuts into the border (it will look much neater) this may mean cutting wider strips for the border (or thinner)

As for putting the cuts in as you go - once you have a starting point ie the front door as a setting out square, you can work backwards into the hall way and put your cuts in as you go. Just make sure you draw some square lines to work to on the floor so that you don't run out of square.

 

[Acousti]

Thanks Tom. I'll ask about the leveller from the place I bought it...