Many times it is quite frustrating to wait for the person, who will fix the tiles on your bathroom floor, but there is a way out available for you, you can tile your bathroom floor with your own efforts. For this purpose you will require some of the tools and the materials like sponge, adjustable wrench, screwdriver, damp rag, pry bar, putty knife, large piece of cardboard for template, tape measure, chalk, hot glue gun, large bucket, paddle mixer, electric drill, water cooled tile saw, ¼” notched trowel, card stock paper, pencil, template gauge, tile nipper, compass, foam rubber tile float and the materials like strips of wood for guidelines, hot glue sticks, thin-set mortar, tile spacers, grout and grout sealer. When you are ready with above tools you can proceed further.
If you proceed with planning then you will be able to finish the work rapidly and with a professional touch. For tiling your bathroom you need to proceed with a definite plan and your first step would be removing the toilet. For this you can begin by shutting off the water supply at the shut off valve and by flushing the toilet to empty it from the water contents. Now with the help of an adjustable wrench, disconnect the water supply from the toilet tank. Next you should remove the nuts holding the toilet to the flange on the floor and lift off the bowl from the floor and carefully remove the toilet from the bathroom. It is advisable to fill a wet piece of rag in the flange opening to prevent sewer gas from escaping. Now you should remove the old vinyl flooring if any before proceeding further, if there is no previous flooring then you may proceed to the next step.
As your floor is ready for the laying of the new tiles now it is the time for planning of the layout for the tiles you have already purchased. After you finalize the layout plan for your bathroom floor, mark the floor with chalk in such a way that it should not get off, while you move on it for working. If you want you may attach strips of wood with hot melt glue, just in case the mortar covers up some of the lines. Now it’s the time to mix the thin-set mortar, pour the mortar into the water and mix the mortar using a paddle mixer powered by an electric drill. You have the option of using quick setting or regular setting mortar for the fixing of the tiles. When the mortar is ready, spread it on the floor using the trowel according to your layout plan. The trowel you will be using should have two sides, a notched edge and a flat edge. The flat edge is used first, to distribute the mortar and press it firmly in contact with the floor. The notched edge is then used by tipping the trowel to a steep angle and scraping it across the surface. These notches create furrows or ridges of uniform thickness.
Now take the first tile and put it nicely in the place. As you are put it down, give a little jiggle to set it firmly in its place and insert a tile spacer between the two adjacent tiles to keep uniform width for all joints. After you fix up all full sized tiles barring the toilet flange and drain openings, it is the time for cutting some of the odd shaped edge tiles that will go along the wall, it is advisable to use a water-cooled tile saw to cut the tiles to shape. To cut a tile to fit around odd shapes use a template gauge to duplicate the shape and then transfer that shape onto card stock, cut out the pattern and trace it onto the tile. Next, use the wet saw to cut narrow strips in the section you will need to remove. The last section to cut is around the toilet flange and the drain openings. Start by measuring the diameter of the drain hole then use a compass to draw a circle on a piece of card stock and cut it out. Before cementing the tiles to the floor, put the first two in position. After centering the template on the drain hole, trace the template onto each tile. Use the wet saw and the same cutaway technique that was used for the molding. Repeat the process for the other two tiles and cement everything in place.
After you are done with the fixing of the tiles Use a foam rubber grout float, dipped in water, to apply the grout. First, use the float to push down on the grout and force it into the joints. The grout should fill the joints all the way to the bottom. Scrape off the excess by the float use damp sponges to wash off the excess. After few days, apply a good quality grout sealer to keep the grout free of stains.