Not Sure How You Guys Do This Every Day - Tile Advice

[Marvo]

The walls are white bevel-edged metros laid landscape orientation in brick formation. Can't remember the exact size off-hand but they look the normal size if that helps.

The floor is 50x50 porcelain mosaics which come as 6x6 sheets.

There's no borders or fancy schmansy dado rails, just stainless trims to go into the external corners around the door and window.

 

[Boggs]

I tend to tile floors first then walls.

And knock out tap holes in ceramic with a thin nail punch and hammer, mine is around 2.5mm and start in centre to break through and work outwards to required size.

 

[Sintra]

@Marvo you’ve just spoilt my Christmas. I’ve a new bathroom suite sitting in my summer house patiently waiting to be installed. I’ve been putting it off for months now but the evil dragon indoors has made me promise to get the bathroom done over the Christmas break. After reading this thread I’m realising what I’m in for. Think the worst bit might be the arguments over 1 bathroom being out of use. Even when both are in use I still seem to have to wait patiently whilst banging doors and pleading to get in before I make a mess.

 

[Marvo]

Lol, evening Stevie.

Yeah, I don't have the problem with fighting for bathroom time, there's 5 bathrooms in total so even with 2 of them out of action at the moment there's still enough to go around.

I've been getting it in the neck from wifey about the dust though. I started telling her on Tuesday evening that the worst was over, knowing damn well it was going to get ten times worse. Then I spent the next couple of days trying to convince her it was just her imagination and it wasn't getting worse but the static reached a crescendo on Thursday so I just jacked and went fishing for the day instead.

Sounds to me like you might need to learn to fish

 

[Marvo]

Day 5...or is it 6? Can't remember and I guess it depends if you include the day I went fishing.

I'm now wishing I'd never started, it's taking too long.... probably because I'm doing things I don't do very often so I'm painfully slow. Most of my cuts from day 1 have healed but now my knees and back are sore. I'm really not having fun anymore and I want it to be over.

Is it just me or do you guys also go through this emotional rollercoaster as you progress through your jobs?

Anyway, enough self-pity for now.

I finished the plumbing.
Plastering finished.
Waterproofing of shower area finished.
Tiling has started.

Photos below for everything excluding the tiling because it looks rubbish at the moment and I'm a bit embarrassed.


Plumbing for the shower;

Plastered up;

Waterproofing done;

 

[WetSaw]

Apart from the fact I haven't seen separate valves like that used in a shower, why didn't you set them vertically to make your pipework easier?
I assume things are done differently over there!

 

[Marvo]

With hindsight I should have brought the horizontal supply side pipework in lower and made the pipe across to the shower head higher then I could gone straight in and out of the taps. It would have been a lot easier but by the time I realised I didn't want to upset wifey with more dust by grinding again.

There's no particular reason I got separate valves, there's all sorts of shower mixer taps available and also fancy ones with thermostatic type mixing valves. Just figured simply separate valves would work fine and they're budget friendly.

 

[Anthony Wills]

Good read and well done (So far) Marvo.....go on, be brave and show us the tiling, that's what we're all here for

 

[Waluigi]

I tend to use end feed Male iron connectors on shower valves. Just an observation. Great progress there Marvo!

 

[Marvo]

I didn't get anything done in the bathroom today, I had a couple of urgent calls and had to go do some real work for customers.

Here's the tiling pics I wasn't going to post until I'd had a chance to tidy things up a bit.

 

[Marvo]

I have another question please.

If you look at the gap in the metros in the second picture there's a gap with 2 tiles missing where there's an electrical conduit box in the wall.

How do I cut a 60mm round hole in the tiles to accomodate that? Unfortunately I don't have any fancy diamond cutters or anything like that, the closest I have might be a Dremmel tool or normal SDS drills etc.

 

[Blunt Tool]

I have another question please.

If you look at the gap in the metros in the second picture there's a gap with 2 tiles missing where there's an electrical conduit box in the wall.

How do I cut a 60mm round hole in the tiles to accomodate that? Unfortunately I don't have any fancy diamond cutters or anything like that, the closest I have might be a Dremmel tool or normal SDS drills etc.

Mark up a couple and take it to a tiler friend or colleague who would have the tools to do it

 

[WetSaw]

Have you got an angle grinder? A few diagonal cuts then tap it out with a hammer. If there's not a shroud going over it tidy it up with a tile file.

 

[Marvo]

Unfortunately I don't have any tiler colleagues. I'll try the angle grinder method, the worst that can happen is it will cost me a tile.

 

[Marvo]

I tried cutting slots into the tile with a grinder but it didn't pan out as planned, two scrap tiles and I tried the dremel approach. It was a bit tedious but after 20 minutes of dentistry it got there.