Tiling - am I insane to try and do this project myself?

[wilbur]

I want to tile an outside seat which is basically an l-shaped rendered bench. Itr's currently painted white, but it gets really grubby and covered in slime in the winter and looks terrible. I want to tile just the seat and seat back area of the bench so it would be easier to clean and look nicer and so on. I have done interior tiling before and did a good job, and I am relatively handy, but is exterior tiling a whole other thing? I have googled tips and they talk about things like expansion joints and so on which makes me a bit nervous. Or do I just buy good exterior adhesive and grout and get on with it? Any thoughts? Any demon tilers out there?

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I can't imagine what it will look like (a bench that is tiled)

won't it be very cold to sit on and pool water etc.

Agree with foxinsocks, buy a Karcher powerwasher and just clean it, very simple. We do it to all the children's plastic tat toys that are garden toys, and our wooden table and chairs as they get cobwebbed etc.

Power wash it, give it a nice lick of paint. Will look lovely.

I have tiled kitchens bathrooms and a shower but wouldn't tackle anything outside because I would think it would crack in frost and we had -12 temps this winter. I don't think tiling could handle that.

Thanks. Yes, you're probably right. We have a karcher washer thing but it strips the paint off the render and I don't really want to have to repaint it every year, as it's quite a big area. We don't get hugely low temps here and it is close to the house, but I guess it would dip below freezing on and off throughout the winter.

foxinsocks - will put a pic on my profile so you can see. It's a concrete bench now so it's not going to get any colder to sit on! We put cusions on it in in the summer anyway, it was more so that it could be quickly wiped in the winter when it looks grim. Wiping the painted render as it is now just smears everything around and makes it look far worse.

I don't think you're insane. Tiling really isn't that hard a job.

You could mosaic it. Mosaic comes in pre-spaced sheets, you just apply adhesive and whack em on then wait for it to dry and grout it.

I've mosaicked two bathrooms(one of them twice) and a table and a mirror. Always looks lovely.

Yes, I was thinking about mosaics - some of the ones they recommend for swimming pools might work (at least they would be damp proof!) but the ones I have looked at online are quite bright. I need to find some in more muted tones.

Check out topps tiles, they have huge selection and I've always managed to blag a trade discount from there

I can't see the seat - am totally blind though. Your garden is truly lovely though wilbur. Really beautiful.

I like those mosaic tiles. I would ask about the swimming pool ones actually as they would probably withstand the temperatures/wet a bit better too (I imagine it's the grout that's important).

Is it flat enough to tile? You won't have to rerender underneath first?

No, it's completely flat and already rendered - sorry, the photos are not great and thank you for the nice comments about the garden - it's taken a lot of elbow grease as it was totally overgrown when we moved in. I love being out there which is why I'd like to make something of the bench to make it easier to clean during the winter.

Pineapple - will check out Topps, there's one near the dc's school.