- 1). The first thing you should even think about doing is making sure you have all of your materials and tools together and ready to go. Once you mix your mortar, you have to use it or it will dry up and become no good. So once you get all your stuff together, make sure your floor is free from any dirt or debris, and also make sure there is no carpet or anything else still on it. Then move onto step two. Just make sure the floor is bare.
- 2
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Now you want to get your mortar ready as long as the floor is ready. You should take your mortar and dump a bag of it into a bucket. Read the instructions as to how much water you need to add. To much water will make it to liquid and to little water will make it to think. You want it to be like a sticky peanut butter. I believe it is 5 quarts per bag but double check your bag as it may be different. But this is where you use your mortar mixer with a drill gun. Put the mortar mixer in the drill gun and you will find that mixing is much easier. After it is mixed, let it sit for 10 minutes then mix it again. Now it's ready to use after that. - 3). Once your mortar is mixed and ready, you can take your trowel (make sure it has square notched edges) and start spreading your mortar mud. How you do this is you want to get some mortar out of your bucket and spread it evenly over your floor in a section. Then once you have the floor section covered, take the square notched ends and scrape the floor so that you get ridges. Make sure when you are scraping that you push all the way down to the floor.
- 4
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Once you have a section spread, take some tile and start laying them. It is best measure the whole width of the room and start laying the tile directly in the middle so you get a matching cut on both sides. Just so you know. Once you get the first tile laid, take your tile spacers and put them between the tile to get square with them. I use a 3/4 inch tile spacer. You can use whatever suits you. - 5). Now that you know how to lay the tile, you just keep doing steps 2-4 until you get the whole surface tiled. Make sure not to walk on it at all. They will shift and when you grout it, you will notice that the floor looks crooked. Once you get the whole floor tiled, let it dry for 24 hours then come back and do step 6.
- 6). Now this step is great (sarcasm). You need to take your grout remover/saw and make sure that you have a deep groove between the tile so that the grout can go between the tile good. So go through each tile and make sure that the mortar is not to much between the tile and if it is, get it out of there. Then move onto step 7. Putting down the grout.
- 7). Now it's time to put in the grout. Once again, follow the instructions on the grout bag or box, and mix it. Once it's mixed, put the grout between the tiles and start spreading it diagonally over the tile so that it fills in between every tile. Use your grout float for this. Once you have a good fill, take the sponge and soak it then squeeze all the water out so it's damp and wipe the grout off of the tile. You will have to do this multiple times to get it all off. A film layer will continue to form until you have it all off. Do this to the whole floor then let it dry for 24 hours. Once it drys, you will have a newly laid ceramic tile flooring. Hope this helped you.
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