ceramic tile part deaux

As you can see, I've made some progress on my bathroom project. I set most of the field tiles on the wall above the broad side of the tub last weekend. I left space for a grab-bar and a soap dish and I still have a vertical row on the left and a partial row along the bottom which require the tiles to be trimmed to size. Today I will be learning how to use my new tile cutter and tile nippers to accomplish that.

I got this tile at Lowe's for a darn good price. It's "Cayman Dolphin" by Portobello and I think it was probably both the cheapest and nicest-looking tile they had. I think when I bought them they were said to be made of recycled materials, which made me like them even more, but I can't find any mention of that on the current websites. The tile came in 3x3 inch squares attached by plastic spacers to form a larger 12x12 square. This is my first attempt at setting tile and I thought it would be easier to set fewer big squares than a bunch of little ones. It was still quite a bit of work to trowel on the mortar and get it evenly thick on the wall. Then when I set the tiles I had to pound them with a rubber mallet to get them to sink down deep into the mortar and I found in many places I had put way too much mortar on and it squeezed out between the joints. I spent a lot of time wiping away the excess and that is a very messy job. I was glad I had laid a sheet of plastic in the tub and had a lot of old towels on hand. Even though the tiles were in big squares it wasn't that easy to keep even spaces between them while keeping them level. I had penciled lines on the cement board per many instructions I had downloaded from the net to help me line up the tiles but when you trowel on the mortar you can't see the lines anymore. I need to write somebody and ask how they are able to see through the mortar. :)

These jobs are never as easy as they look!!!!
I'm still pretty happy with the results so far and I think once they're grouted the tiles will be stunning.