Kitchen - sequence

[ban-all-sheds]

About the only thing I know about tiling is that I'm cr*p at it.

We're going to be overhauling our kitchen - is the tiling best done before we fit all the new units, or after?

 

[Alastairreid]

fit units, worktops, wall units , then tile................

 

[kim119]

I agree tilings always done after the whole things fitted..... But if your not great at it why risk the end result by tiling it yourself employ a tiler or im sure you will regret it as its the finishing that counts and its not as easy as you think........

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Oh don't worry - I have no intention of risking it (how do you think I know it's not easy to do a good job... ).

 

[noseall]

ban, all i can tell you is that the best way is to tile the floor first.

no need for messing about under fridges or washing machines.

plinths or kicker boards can be installed immediately.

diy = tile after.

pro = tile first.

there is no diyer on this earth who can argue or pro skinflint.

 

[Symptoms]

ban - tile floors first (before installing units) and go all the way to the walls, tile walls after you've fitted the units.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I wasn't thinking of the floor - I did know that that should be done first, but I'm not tiling the floor - this is a kitchen makeover on a shoestring, because (hopefully) it'll be ripped out again next year or the year after when we have an extension built, economy willing, so I'll just be laying vinyl, I'm sorry to say. (Not that I'd have had tiles anyway - 'twould have been bamboo).

And I will be doing the floor before putting in the base units - I just wanted to check that installing the rest of the kitchen before getting the tiling done was OK.

 

[noseall]

I wasn't thinking of the floor

no kidding Sherlock! i'm afraid my clairvoyant skills are not working this week.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Sorry - I wasn't having a dig - what I meant was I wasn't thinking about the floor at all (probably because I've never associated tiles with floors), so I didn't even think to mention that I meant tiles on the walls.

But SWMBHF has said "why do we need tiles at all?", so maybe it's a moot point....

 

[lancenotalot]

ban, all i can tell you is that the best way is to tile the floor first.

no need for messing about under fridges or washing machines.

plinths or kicker boards can be installed immediately.

diy = tile after.

pro = tile first.

there is no diyer on this earth who can argue or pro skinflint.

ban - tile floors first (before installing units) and go all the way to the walls, tile walls after you've fitted the units.

Sorry but I disagree guys,recently tiled a kitchen floor and had to remove old tiles first,units had been tiled under when kitchen fitted,made life difficult to say the least

Under slot in cookers ,fridges,freezers and dishwashers yes

Under units,great provided when you change the floor you change the units too.

Also try telling Mr and Mrs Jones that they need an additional 5sqm of travetine at £40 a sqm and x amount to fit them and then tell them "Oh by the way you won't see the tiles as they will be under you units

diy = tile after.

pro = tile first.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

All I can say is that if I were having the floor tiled I wouldn't entertain for a yoctosecond the idea of not doing it before the units went down.

At £40/m I might not go all the way to the walls with them though - find something cheaper to fill in the bits that will never be seen.

Which brings us full circle to why I asked the original Q - I wondered if when it came to wall units and worktops it was better to have them going onto the tiles rather than the tiles being butted up against the sides of the units and the top of the worktops...

 

[Symptoms]

alot - When you wrote: 'Also try telling Mr and Mrs Jones that they need an additional 5sqm of travetine at £40 a sqm and x amount to fit them and then tell them "Oh by the way you won't see the tiles as they will be under you units" '

... you forgot that Mr & Mrs Jones, after forking-out for a lovely stone floor, will have had installed free-standing (or at the very least, on legs) set of units ... maybe something like Smallbone (30K+) ... so will see below the units and therefore want to see the tiles - so it's tile to the walls.

It is good practice to go to the walls, then fit the carcases to that level surface; good practice IMO can't be weakened because of the unlikely (rare) event of swapping tiles. Actually, it's often no real bother to 'pull' a kitchen out, re-do the floor, then shove the original units back in (this is what we tend to do).

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Whatever happened to the notion of stone floors lasting several hundred years?

Did the masons who built the great mediæval cathedrals say "hang on lads - perhaps we shouldn't put the floor down before the altar goes in, just in case..."?

 

[masona]

Which brings us full circle to why I asked the original Q - I wondered if when it came to wall units and worktops it was better to have them going onto the tiles rather than the tiles being butted up against the sides of the units and the top of the worktops...

The problem of having wall tiles first behind the wall units is that the wall units is away from the wall approximately 5-10mm which mean you could have problem with the corner units lining up unless you tiles the whole wall on the return wall which is pointless but does depends the layout of your kitchen. The fitting of the worktop sometime is easier to chop it into the wall but not if the tiles is there which mean the worktop have to be scribed which can be difficult to do.

Also another bonus is if the walls is out of plumb for the wall units which will leave a gap then the tiles can covered it up

 

[seasickstevie]

And also when you wash the tiles and worktop down, there's far less chance of beneath the worktop veneer getting a soaking and becoming 'blown' (I think the term is)