Ok so maybe now the purpose of joining this site may come to help me,

I am a new tiler (Out on my own) and I dont have the help of my old boss anymore.

I am currently doing a bathroon, hall and toilet, laundry.

The bathroom had a tiled shower base, with a square center drain.

The customer wanted the floor tiles to go up the wall where the shower is, because they made their own fall which was in a too small an area and too steep, I had to do 4 tiles around the drain and 45deg cuts on each of those as well to get the fall, The tiles are 300 x 300 and their screeded fall is a square around drain of only 900 x 900 with the rest of room level.

My priority was that the grout line would match the one going up the wall and because I had to center also these 4 around the drain to get a fall, I was limited in my options..

Anyway, I measured, remeasured, laser line everything and after finishing the base, I started to tile the rest of the room starting from the edges of the four shower drain tiles, however, as I got closer to the hallway, I can see that the tiles are straying away from the walls line and when it gets into the hallway, I think it is going to look crap.

This job has been endless problems and has already taken me twice as long as I had accounted for, I really dont want to rip all the floor tiles up and start again if possible.

I have thought of a few options:

1. Keep going straight and cut on the edges
2. Do some cuts at the doorway to the bathroom and maybe put a double sided angle there? then from the other side go back parallel with the hallway wall
3. Rip it all up, (This would take at least another day or 2, )and ignore the line continuing on the wall section and just do the floors using the walls as guides. (this way the floors will be good, and all they can complain about is the grout lines not matching the wall grout lines.

Does/ has anyone here ever had to cut tiles in the field? as in a mid room cut to straighten things?

**Also Wishing I had of used the same colour grout as the tiles**

I know you need photos, I should take some tomorrow, but I need to make a decision and cant stop stressing about this job.

Tim, I'm not sure if I'm following & photos would help. But I have one question, are the wall tiles the exact same width as the floor tiles?

Tim..so in a nutshell your bathroom floor tiles are not square with the hallway is that correct? I suppose photos would help us image it a bit better. I think putting an angle by the door way and re-squaring the tiles into the hallway may work ..even if it's a bit dodgy and you are gonna have to explain to the clients why the angles are put there... waterstop perhaps?I know some waterproofers who would put 10mm angles by the doorway of wetareas and silicon. To stop any leakages tracking out under the tiles to other parts of the house. Also the doors the bathroom. Toilet and laundry will be closed a lot of the time so no ones gonna notice you re squaring out in the hallway. Much better to resquare in this situation then to tile the hallway outta wack...which will be much more noticeable.

Thanks ttek, they wont like that though either I fear, because when i am done they will see the lines all divert when they look down them, but at least your right, much better to resquare in this situation then to tile the hallway outta wack.

Hey Notch, yeah the wall tiles are the same as the floor ones, the thing is that it is the fact that I had to tile from the base up the wall that created the initial line in the first place, will see again today , gonna shoot a laser from the furthest distance back to the start of the line and see just how much out of whack everything will be if I continue, fingers crossed

Tim how many meters in the bathroom floor have you done? Is pulling the tiles up an option?. It's a pain trying to line up new tiles with existing ones because you can so easily lose your square and through things outta wack. Just gonna have to make sure next time you do a thorough setout. Check, recheck and then recheck. If it ain't possible to get the required outcome, tell the clients it's not possible to line up the floor/wall tiles. Just tell them the floor joints are bigger than wall joints, unless they are rectified tiles. If you have to pull up the floor tiles and restart. Do it when the clients aren't around, because it doesn't give them confidence that you know what you are doing.

Yeah hey, I was there today and I didn't do anything, when I checked again, they were not far off, and not as bad as I'd thought, I agree though that I should have done the set out better. There is always something I forget, I'll square with something then I'll stuff it up somewhere on the far sides.

Do you have any set order of priorities that you use to set out a room? Like a bathroom for instance? I mean this time I think I am lucky, because the hallway is not long. If it was a long hallway then I would have had to pull up the tiles. Hey I will take some photos when it is done, this job is a small job, but it has been hard for me, the bane of my existence, by myself.. I am not the pro you guys are..

Don't worry about it too much Tim, everybody makes stuff ups, it's how you get out of them that separates the men from the boys. Can you start to try & swing it back around to square by fudging it a couple of millimetres each row? The out of square end can be swung around a bit this way at times & really only you or another sharp pair of tilers eyes will notice. This will work as long as it's not outrageously out of square.
Did you do the walls first? If so, whenever the walls & floors must line up do the floors first, it's too difficult to get right otherwise. If the wall or floor tiles are even half a mm different in size it's near impossible to line them up as eventually it will creep past where it should be. In this case I always start with a half bond & it still looks the part.Just make sure to explain it to the clients first. Constant communication is the key when it comes to doing jobs for the public to make sure expectations are met.

Notch is right. Every pro Tiler has stuffed up at least once in their careers. It's a good learning curve.

Cheers Notch, I Just wanna be a better tiler, and faster,

Yeah I did the walls first, I always do, maybe I should do it more specific to each job?

Like with stairs I always do the risers first, some dude was telling me at the tile shop that he did them at the same time, I couldn't work out later how he would not have to do the risers first?

Yeah, well this is the first time I have had tiles on floor continuing up wall, and I did actually do a cut in the mid feild to see if it would straighten them, but that makes the tiles shorter and the adjacent tile ends up not square with the one beside it unless you do a cut on the other end as well!! which its already bad to be doing a cut mid feild, so I took them up, scraped the glue off and kept with the full tiles to the line,

The gap now is only about a 2 inch variance from the start of the line which is over 3 meters from the wall, so this aint too bad I guess, plus I have cuts on either side of the hall, and the toilet is also going to be cuts on either side, all of them at least 3rd tile width, so I dont think it will be too noticeable.

I have been communicating with them a lot, but when this prob happened the guy has gone away to china, he will be back, but I think it will be solved, I am not gonna bring it up, unless he does.

It took a long time even to find out off this guy where the shower frame will be sitting, in the end he said to just make the shower base square using 45degs from the drain strainer. (Which he got me the wrong one and I had to go down to reece to get a second one.!!) phew!!

To be honest, I dont think the 45degs from the strainer gave him enough width for his shower screen anyway, but I also dont think that if he gets a frameless one it will look any worse, because it has this as a feature..

In terms of making the 'turn' using spacers, I have done exactly that. The shower base was done with 1.5mm and then over time, I miraculously brought in 3mm spacers into the hallway and rest of job, It is not noticable though because it is a cross over from one room to the next and at the bathroom entrance it is really only 2 1/2 tiles wide..

You can't do the walls first if they have to line up with the floor, I reckon this is where you're having difficulty here. It's really hard to give more advice without seeing it or even being there really. But cuts in the middle are a real no no.

Risers definately have to be done before treads if the stairs are to be done correctly. There are no short cuts when it comes to staircases.

Also, I never use spacers on a floor, at the beginning I lay out half a dozen or so tiles along a straight edge with an even joint that's suitable for the tile & take a measurement of two, four & six tiles as my modules (making sure the tape is hard up against the last tile so that joint is included in the measurement) Then as you do your set out lines around the perimeter or the room check & double check these measurements as you go, every module will be even, make sure everything is square & when you do the opposite side, parallel across, and continue with your module measurements, checking with the other side originally laid so they are even. Using this method everything will be parallel & square when you fill in the middle.
I hope this makes some sense, I've never tried to put it into writing before & am better showing with actions than words.

Oh, and don't worry too much about speed, that will come with experience and the fastest tilers I've known have been the roughest, quality should come first.