2 Tips To Help You Complete Your Own Tile And Grout On Your Next Tiling Project

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Tiling a bathroom or kitchen surface creates an area that is beautiful and durable. With the right tips, tools, and technique, your do-it-yourself tiling job can come out looking great. Here are two tips to help you with this.

Select the Right Materials

When you are tiling and grouting your project, make sure you choose the right mastic, grout, and sealer to help you most successfully complete your project. It can be helpful to select a pre-mixed mastic, which will already be mixed for you at the right consistency, especially as mastic tends to dry more quickly. If you mix up your mastic too dry, it will dry even more quickly and result in your tiles falling off their mastic layer. Mastic is a relatively inexpensive product that you can pay a little more for it to be already mixed and ready to use.

Plan to buy your tile grout that is not pre-mixed to save some of the cost of the product and to help you buy a higher-quality product if you prefer. Then, mixing up the grout with water is easy to complete on your own.

Be sure your grout color best matches the color of your mastic. Most pre-mixed mastic comes in white or gray, so if you are using a colored grout, for example, use gray mastic. And if you are using white grout, select white mastic. This helps the products' colors match if any mastic were to show through your completed grouting.

Use and Apply the Materials 

As mastic tends to dry rather quickly, apply it in small sections onto the surface you are tiling. Consider working in sections you can complete within, for example, five to ten minutes to prevent your mastic from drying prematurely. After you apply the tile onto your layer of mastic, use a damp sponge or cloth to wipe any mastic from the surface of edges of your tiles. This prevents the mastic from drying onto the tile and making it difficult to remove later. 

When it is time to apply the grout, mix it according to the package directions. You can use a power drill with a paddle mixing attachment to thoroughly combine the powder with the water, or you can use a trowel to mix it up.

Make sure the grout is the right consistency and not too runny, which can cause the grout to run after installation and can cause the grout to crumble and fail. Properly mixed grout should resemble the consistency of peanut butter. 

Take your time when pressing the grout into the spaces between your tiles so you can do a nice job. Grout does not dry quickly like mastic, so there is no rush when doing this part of the job. 

With these two tips you can successfully apply and grout tile in your next project. To learn more, contact a company like Superior Grout

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