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Shower Waterproofing Crash Course: Navigating through 4 different methods
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How to Install GoBoard Tile Backer Board | Video
How to Install GoBoard Tile Backer Board It’s time to work on DIY’ing your tile shower and you’re not looking forward to working with the dreaded cement board again. It’s dusty, crumbly, and hard to start screws into. Not to mention how heavy it is. Sure, there are waterproof foam backer boards on the market […]
Tips & Tricks
Bathroom Floor Tile Layout in 5 Easy Steps
Bathroom Floor Tile Layout It seems like a simple project- a small bathroom floor. You’ve picked out your tile at the local box store along with a few supplies and your ready to go. The problem is: Where do you start? See my previous post on tile layout concepts and why this layout was chosen. […]
Why a centered tile layout is a bad idea
This post deals with tile layout as a concept. If you are looking for a more How-to, nuts & bolts post then be sure to check out my related post on Bathroom Floor Tile Layout in 5 Easy Steps. Typical tile layout advice is: Measure off of each wall Find the center of the […]
DIY Wet Saw Tent
DIY Wet Saw Tent A wet saw is a nice thing to have when you are installing tile. But one of the problems is the water getting all over. Especially if you have it set up in a house or a sensitive area. Also, if you are installing tile in the winter and you live […]
Waterproofing
Is Hardibacker and Durock cement board waterproof?
Reader question: Hi there. I recently finished grouting my tile surround in my shower. I posted photos on Facebook and somebody questioned whether I had waterproofed the Hardiebacker 500 board. Much to my dismay, I had never even heard of this… Anyway, I went to the James Hardie website and see nothing about waterproofing being […]
No Waterproofing: Will this cause shower leaks?
Shower leaks. The last thing anyone wants when they build a new shower. And yet I hear the following questions quite often: Is cement board waterproof? The tile and grout will keep the most of the water out, right? My contractor didn’t put any waterproofing in our shower. Will this cause shower leaks? We […]
6 Things NOT To Do When Building a Tile Shower
6 Bad Remodeling Ideas for Tile Shower Construction Sheetrock in a shower and other bad ideas Sometimes it’s nice to know what-not-to-do when remodeling a tile shower in your bathroom. Here’s a list of just a few of those things: 1. Drywall Shower Walls Drywall (sheetrock) falls apart when it gets wet. Putting a […]
Tutorial
How to Build a Recessed Shampoo Shelf
The Ultimate Guide to Building a Preformed Recessed Shower Niche Part 2 Building, Installing, and Tiling a Recessed Shampoo Shelf In this post we discuss: How to cut an inset niche into the wall What tools to use to build the recessed shampoo shelf Blocking (framing) for a recessed niche How to make sure your […]
Sealing the tub flange for tile
That pesky tub flange. You have the tile backerboard installed and everything is waterproofed. Everything except that gap between the backerboard and the tub flange. How do you waterproof that? What to do with the tub flange? To begin with you can try reading the instructions for the backerboard… which then will reveal… nothing. What about […]
How to Cut Glass Tile- 7 Tips Revealed- video
How to Cut Glass Tile Cutting glass tile can be a challenge. Yes, more of a challenge than cutting regular old ceramic tile. Additionally, the average DIY’er may not have the right equipment and may not know the tricks for how to cut glass tile. But, alas, I’ve assembled some pointers on how to deal […]
Tile Installation Products
7 Hot New Tile Products and Tools for 2016
New Tile Products Heated Tile Floor Membranes Joining the likes of Ditra Heat and Prodeso Heat is the newcomer Prova Flex-Heat. The newer trend in heated tile floors is to run the heated wire in the tile underlayment rather than on top or below. The advantage is the installation is a little easier and it […]
Ditra Heat Mat Installation: Ignore these two rules
Typically I encourage people to follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Especially when the company has clear, detailed, and easy to understand instructions. But when it comes to both Ditra Heat and Ditra Heat TB [edit: now called Ditra-Heat Duo] there are two things that I just don’t feel are good ideas. This post deals with the […]
Ceramic Tile Trends 2016
Ceramic Tile Trends 2016 Today’s tiles are much different than when I first got into the trade. Gone are the 4 inch white ceramic tiles that were in every home. Tile has come a long way and it looks like it has much further to go. Here’s the overall ceramic tile trends that I […]