I always encourage people to think about completing their own home improvement projects. Now, why would I do that? Doesn't that lose me money? No, the people who are already searching for how to do it themselves most likely aren't going to call me anyway, so I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I get to spread information on how to complete projects on your own and have the accomplishment of completing something beautiful in my own home!

1) Are you installing a radiant heating system?

This question should be decided long before the tile is ready to be laid. In order to have a heated floor, separate electrical boxes, fuses, and wires have to be ran from the box to the desired location. If a last minute decision is made to change to a heated floor it will be much more difficult to run wires after the sheetrock is up and may cause headaches during the process.

2) If so, know how much square footage of heating cable you need

Knowing how much wire you'll need is a crucial step most people don't expect to have a large impact. You'll need to know what areas can/can’t have wire, so under vanities, tubs/ showers, toilets, or around heaters have special requirements. Checking the manufacturer's recommendations or rules is the best way to stay safe with this step. It will also help to save money, the less wire the cheaper the price!

3) Check the floor for flatness, if it has humps or dips you should probably self-level the floor, or use a skimming floor patch to flatten it

Using a level or some other straight edge is an excellent way to check the floor for flatness. The standard is if the floor is off ⅛” over 8'it should be flattened with a skim patch or an S.L.U. If the floor is not level, but is flat, that is perfectly fine to tile over. Trying to tile over a floor with humps and valleys is extremely difficult depending on the tile used and will slow the process of laying down immensely.

4) Spend a lot of time on the layout, sliver cuts should be avoided at all costs

This tip will go along with 5 and 6 because layout is an incredibly important step that some people overlook for the ease of being able to start with a full tile. The rule of thumb is any piece of tile that is less than ¼ or ⅓ of the tile (depending on the installer) is a sliver cut. If there’s no way to avoid a sliver cut its best to put it against a wall that is covered with things that will visually block the sliver. An example of this is against a wall with a toilet and vanity against it. But the best case is to move the layout enough to avoid them.

5) Choosing a layout point is sometimes difficult, I usually recommend checking to see how a full tile at the door entrance lays out with the rest of the room, or how a full tile against a shower curb or bathtub lays out everywhere else.

This is my recommendation on how to explore options with layout. The most looked at areas of a floor (in my opinion) are going to be wide open areas (which does not apply here) against a shower or tub, and in the main entryway into the bathroom. So checking to see how the layout will be running off these main points in the bathroom is a good place to start.

6) Dry-lay tile on the floor with spacers to see how everything works out against walls and finished surfaces like tubs, curbs, cabinets, and doorways.

Using this tip when exploring layout options will get you the absolute best results. This is because it’s laid exactly like it will be as a finished product. And if you find a layout that works well you can make lines where grout joints will fall and you'll be good to go from there.

7) Pull off all baseboard trim before installing the tile, it can be reinstalled when you’re finished

Pulling off the baseboard is a MUST when tiling a floor. There's nothing that looks worse than jagged cuts against existing trim or a piece of ¼” round against the tile. It's a step that doesn't take much time and leads to a cleaner, more professional product. This of course does not apply in a new build, but watch out for this in reno.

8) Depending on what flooring is outside of the bathroom you will need to know what kind of transition strip you’ll need for the door 

If the floor transitions to natural wood, carpet, LVP, or even other tile you should know what transition strip you're going to need. Schluter carries a large variety of different finishes and styles to explore. The most important part of these transitions is knowing how thick your finished tile will be, this directly correlates to how thick the transition piece needs to be. For example, if your tile is ¼” thick, and you're expecting to have a buildup of 1/16” of thinset under the tile you'll need a 5/16” thick transition.

9) Make sure that the transition between the two floors will be buried perfectly beneath the door

Putting the transition perfectly under where the door will consequently lead to the cleanest finished look. This is because from both sides of the door, you'll only want to see the flooring that is laid in that room, not a mixture of the two. Sometimes you may see a piece of the transition, and that is ok.

10) Check your work constantly while installing, the old adage goes “Level is desired, but FLAT IS REQUIRED”

Checking work while you go is so so so important. This will allow you to catch any mistakes you may have made and possibly correct them. Or even checking your coverage every once in a while will let you reassure yourself that you're using the right notch trowel with the right consistency thinset.