Grout gap for Wall and Floor Tile Alignment

[Bobski14]

Hi all,
First time tiling my bathroom floor and wall so have been doing a lot of research to try and do it correctly first time! What I am hoping to do is to align the wall and floor tiles (i.e. line up the grout gaps). However, from what I understand the grout gap on the floor is typically 3-4mm where as the wall tile grout gap is typically 2mm. Surely its not possible to align wall and floor tiles with different grout gaps? To add to my confusion I have also noticed that the floor tile on average is about 1-2mm wider than that of the wall tile. Is this usual? Some particulars, from the box label, are:
Ceramic Floor Tile (approximately) 333mmx333mm
Ceramice Wall Tile 333mmx250mm
The are from the same company and are supposed to be a matching combination.
Is it generally considered "best practise" to align wall and floor tile grout gaps? If grout gaps need to be the same is it possible to use a 2mm grout gap on the floor tiles.
Thanks very much for any help with this.

 

[diamondtiling]

Hi there and welcome, how big is the floor in question?

 

[Bobski14]

The room is approx 2.2m in length and 1.8m in width. It's actually an L-shaped room but the bath is going into the recess which theoretically makes it into a rectangular room regarding the floor tiling. I have attached an image which should give you a rough idea of the layout. Thanks.

 

[diamondtiling]

The floor is only small and that will help you, you can open and close the grout line very slightly to line things up, however if the tiles are very much bigger than each other then it will prove difficult regarding grout lines. You could opt for placing a floor tile in the middle of the wall tile, so you will get a half bond or brick bond. Cutting the larger tile down by a few mill is a no go so don't try it Bob. If its only a mill or so you should be able to get the grout lines lined up, as you progress across the floor you will have to decide how they are looking, I have done this a thousand times and to be honest Bob I only know for definate if its going to work when I can actually see the tiles on the job. Dry lay the floor after the walls are done so that you can see how they will look when finished.

 

[DHTiling]

You could always swing the floor tiles into a diamond pattern...looks well that way..

 

[Bobski14]

Hi Dave
Thanks for the reply. Have been thinking about it and the diamond pattern would probably look pretty good. Is it much more difficult doing it this way and is there anything in particular that I should bear in mind when setting out the layout(other than the obvious to avoid small/awkward cuts)? Thanks again.

 

[mistral]

I would normally do the floor first to be sure of getting every wall to line up with the floor......but with the floor tiles being bigger it's going to be a nightmare!

 

[diamondtiling]

If you are going for the Diamond pattern then just make sure you set out properly so that all cuts are the same all around the walls, there is nothing worse than a small diagonal than gets progressively bigger along the wall, in your case find the middle and set out from there.

 

[DHTiling]

Hi Dave
Thanks for the reply. Have been thinking about it and the diamond pattern would probably look pretty good. Is it much more difficult doing it this way and is there anything in particular that I should bear in mind when setting out the layout(other than the obvious to avoid small/awkward cuts)? Thanks again.

If you are going for the Diamond pattern then just make sure you set out properly so that all cuts are the same all around the walls, there is nothing worse than a small diagonal than gets progressively bigger along the wall, in your case find the middle and set out from there.

Dom has it covered for you...i think the diamond pattern will look the biz..

 

[bluebob]

diamond sounds good to meif u do decide against diamond i would not bother trying to align joints.like u said variation in tiles and bigger grout lines usually on floor means it wont work.can make setting out difficult aswell