Tiling Mistakes to Avoid

Renovating your lovely home with brand new tiles might sound exciting until you realise that you are going to do it by yourself. We come across a myriad of designs and ideas whenever we scroll through our Instagram feed, walk into a restaurant, visit our friends’ homes, or watch a movie or series. What we don’t come across are the mistakes we would probably make when tiling our walls or floors. In this article, you will get a fair understanding of some of the common tiling mistakes that need to be avoided the next time you install or renovate your tiles.

Wall Tiling Mistakes

It may feel like a daunting task when you think about tiling your bathroom or kitchen walls, but with proper planning and preparation, it is less tiring and more enjoyable. Making tiling mistakes is very common, but they are also easily avoidable. Below are some of the most common wall tiling mistakes you need to avoid to ensure a seamless tiling process.

• Unprepared Walls: Before tiling the walls of your bathroom or kitchen, it is important to ensure that the surface is cleaned well and free of uneven areas. An uneven and unorganised surface would make your tiling work more difficult, and you might end up redoing the whole process, resulting in a waste of time and money. 

• Lack of Safety Measures: As with all DIYs, safety and precautionary measures should be taken after planning the tiling process. This protects you and helps you avoid making the most common wall tiling mistakes.

• Insufficient Tools: Of all the things to check before tiling your walls, the relevant tools and equipment come first. With inadequate tools, you might end up getting exhausted quicker than you expected. Getting all the necessary tools and materials saves a lot of time and makes the work effortless.

• Not Removing Grout: One of the common tiling mistakes any DIY enthusiast would make is not removing excessive grout on the tile gaps. Removing the protruding grouts will make your walls look correctly designed and arranged.

• Incorrect Adhesive Filling: It is essential to go slow and steady while applying the adhesives to the surface. A fast and improper adhesive filling gives the wall an uneven appearance and requires frequent maintenance.

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Bathroom Tiling Mistakes

The bathroom is frequently exposed to moisture, which can have detrimental effects on the tiles. Tiling the bathroom floor needs careful consideration and a proper plan. A simple bathroom tiling mistake might lead you to feel dissatisfied with the DIY process and make you give it up. To prevent any mishaps with your bathroom tiling DIY, here are some of the frequently made bathroom tiling mistakes that need to be avoided. 

• Wrong Trowel Size: Most people underestimate the importance of a trowel and its size. To have a perfectly aligned floor, one should ensure that the size of a trowel matches the size of the tile. 

• Unorganised Additional Elements: When choosing the tiles for your bathroom, ensure that the other elements, such as taps, showers, and wastewater drain strainers, fit the tile to avoid shower tiling mistakes.

• Unsuitable Layout Pattern: To avoid water clogging in your bathroom, one needs to make sure that the bathroom tiles are laid in a diagonal position. 

• Wet Adhesive While Grouting: Most importantly, ensure the adhesive is completely dry before grouting to prevent the simplest bathroom tiling mistake. 

• Inadequate Waterproofing: Never miss installing a waterproof backer board when it comes to tiling an area that is exposed to water. One of the prominent uses of the waterproof backer board is preventing the water from trickling along the edge of the floor and grout lines.

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Kitchen Tiling Mistakes

Renovating your kitchen doesn’t always mean buying the latest appliances, cabinetry, and a beautiful dining table. Most people don’t pay much attention to the flooring and the kitchen layout. Make sure you pay attention to our suggestions to avoid the following common kitchen tiling mistakes.

• Unclean Surface: For every tiling project, it is important to make sure that the area where the tiles will get placed is clean and free from debris as it affects the underlayment of tiles.

• Lack of Special Preparation: Unlike the living rooms and bedrooms, the kitchen needs an anti-slippery tiling material to prevent frequent falls due to accidental oil spillage. 

• Improper Spacing: To attain the perfect spacing and alignments between the wall and floor tiles, ensure to use spacers while laying the tiles in the kitchen. 

• Lack of Precision: If one thing adds more weight to the kitchen tiling process, it would be the burden of aftercare. Considering the adverse effects of oil and spilled food materials, one should pay more attention and have an eye for detail when laying the tiles in the kitchen to prevent making a costly kitchen tiling mistake.

Keep note of these common tiling mistakes to avoid and have a stress-free tiling makeover!