It's not hard at all...it was one of the first "major" projects I ever did, and I did it by myself. The folks at www.tileyourworld.com (John Bridge forums) are fantastic and very willing to help, they'll answer any questions you have. Go over there and read up on it first. They have extensive resource libraries where you'll find everything you need. You'll need a bit of equipment, I'd recommend you buy a tile saw since once you tile something you'll find all sorts of other things you want to tile! We bought ours for $100 at HD.
The main thing is that you have a flat floor and use the right trowel and mortar for the type of tile you're using. If your floor isn't flat, or you use the wrong stuff, you'll end up with problems down the road.
My neighbors already offered their tile saw, so I have that covered. The room is fairly straightforward - no strange angles, curves or anything like that. The chosen tile is a 16" pocerlain with a rectified edge (looke like slate), so it will be installed with very small grout lines.
The floor is concrete and was previously tiled (all grout and thinset already removed). My biggest concern is wanting to get the tile layed very flat - no uneven tiles etc. The area to be covered is the kitchen which is open to the "den" (think of this as a small 'great room') and hallway.
We did our bathroom floor in February and it turned out fabulously... We even did the epoxy grout and love the results. I can't say that I helped a whole lot but DH is not a pro and did just fine. Make sure you get a level floor and use the right trowels - HD has a class on tiling most weekends as well, maybe go to one of those.
Here's our floor:
And with the grout
We also borrowed a tile saw...
__________________ Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. ~ Plato Craig and Stacy - Slowly making progress since 2005 Need help posting photos to Ikeafans? Check out the Gallery Tutorial
If the floor being level is an issue, I know when we were doing demo. at my mom's house the kitchen floor was uneven because of a few chipped tiles; the rest were firmly in place. So in order to put the new floor in, we used a floor leveler (some type of mix we got at HD) and troweled it level. Set-up very quickly. Worked like a charm.
We used that stuff in the kitchen - called Rock Hard
__________________ Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. ~ Plato Craig and Stacy - Slowly making progress since 2005 Need help posting photos to Ikeafans? Check out the Gallery Tutorial
Stacylu, your floor looks great! If the area was a little smaller, I would totally attempt it myself. I need to get a final measurement, but the whole job is probably 300-400 sq feet. More than I think I want to take on for a first time tile project...
What Eva said. I think every single person in DIY world could benefit from JB tile forum.
With a tile that large the levelness of the floor over the larger expanse is going to be very important as is having a very stable floor structure and substrate material. Again, do what Eva said.
Tiles installed not perfectly level with eachother is called "lippage" in John Brigde speak
Another very important point is one splatgirl alluded to: your subfloor has to be solid. Nothing destroys a tiling job faster than flex in the subfloor: it will cause tiles and grout to crack.
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