How hard/easy is tiling

[Noisygirls]

Morning

Need to have the splashback behind our range oven tiled but also trying to save a few pennies (because the tiles I like are a little more pricey than budgeted). So question is how hard is it to tile? We are quite diy friendly and its such a small job!

Easy peasy! Mind you I swore I was never ever tiling again after doing our bathroom, but it's really not hard!

On a flat wall it's a very easy and satifying job. Have a look online for instructions. Take your time doing it. You will feel great!

It's easy to tile but to make it look absolutely perfect and even is much more difficult, even using tile spacers.

I would always get a tiler because I would be permanent and deeply irritated by imperfections, but that's a very personal thing, you may be a bit more forgiving!

Also, if much cutting was required, particularly into corners or around sockets, I'd avoid it, but if you can work with full tiles, I imagine it's much easier.

Easy, but time consuming.

But remember you might also have to budget to buy tile cutters (manual for straight cuts, but circular saw type thing if you need corner's round plugs), spacers, adhesive applying tool (sorry forgot it's name) etc. Plus extra tiles if you break any or cut wrong.

For a bigger space, or if your likely to use the stuff again it would be worth it. But for a small job a tiler might work out cheaper

It is reasonably easy. I have helped my Dp do tiling on jobs and we are still together. Its all about the prep. You need to put abaton on the wall to work to. Decide on your layout initially and then go for it. So song as your initial row is straight and you use spacers you're golden. It is also really impirtant to have an even spread of adhesive on the wall.

Another tip us clean any adhesive from the front of the tile as you go along because it is a total bastard to remove once dry.

It can be difficult with more expensive rustic tiles as they tend to be less uniform.

Use a spirit level!

If your wall is uneven leave it to the professionals

Definitely give it a go OP!
I've done a fair but if tiling in my time usually in kitchen between countertops and cupboards, done splash backs in bathrooms and it's always come out pretty good.
Watching Youtube videos is always a big help for stuff like this.

We did a test run for the kitchen with regard to laying out the tile (offset grout lines or lined up grout lines) I just used a loft board as we had some spare. We laid the tiles down on the board, and grouted them. Just a few rows to get a feel for it. The tiles were the ones with tiny imperfections which we wouldn't have used for the kitchen anyway.

You can buy ready mixed both adhesive and grout combined. Good for a beginner.

You need to think about where the tiling starts and finishes and you need to think and plan it. Plus what are you doing with the edges?

Think about the middle of the range cooker and are you staggering tiles or stacking them? I am a bit obsessed with symmetry so my tiling is all the way round the kitchen but we made sure we framed out the window so either side is the same.

I have tiled a lot of things, including lots of different sized tiles too. Dry run it first before you commit. And a handy tip for you, put adhesive on the back of the tile rather than the wall, that way you don't have it squishing through the grout lines. Clean up immediately.

Use a grout sponge - not any old sponge. We have a small spirit level that we use to sit on the tiles to make sure we are still straight.

Here is my kitchen, we tiled it a few years ago.

It's fine. Took us ages as we had an intricate design first time. The rotary tile cutters are good but if you buy one of them for such a small area, you might almost as well pay for a tiler. There are lower tech solutions with scoring and snapping. It might be worth trying that first, even if it costs you a few more tiles.

Or glass hob splashbacks seem to be about £80.