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Tiling my kitchen floor - slate tiles
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[QUOTE="Futuregrout, post: 871373"] I thought I would let you all know how it went. Prep and laying decoupling membrane: I started two days late due to work commitments, so I only emptied the kitchen on the Friday night. It took me all of Saturday to get cleared up, sort out the layout and get the decoupling membrane down. It was roasting hot all day - rapid set was a bad choice, and totally unnecessary in hindsight. I used the Kerakoll mat recommended on this thread. I found it harder to put down than ditra mat and I did have a few issues smoothing it out properly. I will give myself a 5/10 (10/10 being the result achieved by a good professional tiler) because while I did get it done per the instructions, it took me forever as I had to mix up the rapid set in such small quantities. Even with my dad helping by doing the mixing, it took ages. Working out a layout: It took 2 hours on Sunday to work out the layout. I am very pleased with the layout, it was pretty efficient and I think it just looks "right". 2 hours well spent. I will give myself 9/10 for the layout - I think it works really well, although I am sure others would find problems with it. Laying tiles: I used a 12mm trowel following suggestions on here, and back buttering the back of the tiles with maybe 2mm of adhesive. I was using semi rapid set adhesive, half a bag at a time, with 5mm spacers (admittedly ignoring the advice here, but I thought the tiles were pretty uniform and that I could manage a smaller space). I also used Rubi levelling clips. It took me a long day and a half to lay the tiles. I will give myself 6/10 here. On the whole I think I did a decent job and, as a DIYer, getting all the tiles down in a day and a half (Sun PM and Monday) felt like a result even with my dad helping by mixing up the adhesive and cutting the tiles. The vast majority of tiles feel and look flat, level and flush... but there are 3 or 4 where I can feel a lip when stepping on them and I just know it will drive me nuts over time. I am not sure what the rubi clips achieved to be honest - I couldn't see any obvious difference they made, and they broke as soon as I squeezed a bit to hard. The size of the tile was less of an issue than I had thought, and as someone on the the thread above said, anything smaller would have looked wrong in the room, but the little plastic rubi clips seemed incapable of doing anything to level up the heavy tiles. I also made more mess than I expected to - in particular right at the end (the nearest tiles in the picture - they have since been cleaned up). Grouting will have to wait until the weekend because the supplier didn't actually ship the grout, and because I ran out of time and energy anyway. Overall: I am pleased to have got it done but it was really hard work, a pro would have managed to get a better finish, and my knees are killing me! I would do it again if I had to, but my hope is that next time I will be in a position to pay a good tiler to it instead. Thanks everyone for the advice! [ATTACH]91072[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
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Tiling my kitchen floor - slate tiles
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