How easy is to get tiles off and then retile the same area?

[Heartsease]

I want to do this to our kitchen splashbacks which are much older than the units, and generally a blot on the landscape (they are grubby looking white, with dingy grouting, plus at some point in the seventies the previous owner 'cheered them up' with some stick on motifs). Although I've never tiled before I reckon that bit will be fine -- it's the smashing off of the old ones and amount of prep required to be ready to start again that I'm wondering about. Any encouraging experiences?

Um it kinda depends on what they were stuck on with! If you had a novice doing it with hardcore cement you might be in trouble. Alternatively, if you had a novice sticking them on not very well, then it might be a piece of cake IYSWIM. Have encountered both issues personally.

would have thought it might be a bit tricky working round the units if you can't move them, non? Have only done bathroom tiling myself.

My general rule with diy is to give myself three times as much as I originally estimate - more like five times if it's at all tricky/physically laborious. I'm always trying to dig up the garden in my lunch hour!

Don't take the tiles off, just tile over them. The flat surface of the old tiles is better to tile on that a lumpy bumpy wall covered in bits of old tile adhesive. I have seen it done and you only lose a few millimetres of work surface at the back.

Hmm good point about the novice tiler! We had polystyrene ceiling tiles all over the ceilings, and most had barely any glue so came off easily, but then there were odd patches where there was loads -- we reckoned there was a mate helping on some days who was less stingy with the adhesive.

Multiplying by three is also a top tip . This is the end of a long renovation project and the learning curve has been steep but satisfying.

Greenwing, I hadn't thought of that. What happens at the top? Do you need to put some kind of edging strip on to hide the tiles?

yeah you can buy them most diy/tiley places - plastic curved things

Interesting. Thanks!

I retiled my kitchen and it was the first time I had ever done any tiling. There was quite a bit of damage to the wall where the previous tiles where, so we used the adhesive to build up the bigger holes to make the tiles straight. They look fantastic and are never coming off the wall, ever!

I also retiled our bathroom and what a nightmare that was. The tiles that were on there were so wonky there was no chance of tiling on top of them. When DH removed them, the whole wall caved in which meant loads more work for us. We had to replace the plaster board and tile onto that.

I am never going to tile in this house again. Cutting the tiles is even worse, I really hated that and wasted so many tiles

Apparently it is standard and completely fine to tile over rather than take the old tile off. Builders doing our bathroom told me this recently and I was sceptical so looked it up and yes, apparently so.

OK I am determined not to pull the whole wall down! I am still a bit dubious about tiling over the tiles, because they are quite wibbly and old so afraid it will be a nightmare and not very flat, but I need to inspect properly. I had no idea tiling over tiles was so usual!

you can just paint over them if you need a quick solution

I hadn't thought of that, Fiddledee -- does it ever look good though? I associate it with student houses where it was all flaky and you could see the 1970s brown motifs in the holes where it had chipped off.

The paint looks fine, think you may have to sand, use a primer of some sort so it sticks then paint over it - decorator did it so I'm not sure.

Oh about to buy a house that needs doing up and I will paint the tiles before destroying the kitchen in a couple of years!