Tiling bath/shower area, best surface?

[MrRichT]

Ok first off, sorry I'm sure this has been answered before and I've searched and read loads but I'm now more confused than ever! And I didn't know whether to ask in the Plastering forum or here but anyway...

It's a fairly simple question really. I've stripped my bathroom walls back to the bare brick on the exterior walls, and on the partition walls back to the wooden frame (removed the lathe and plaster). The ceiling I plan to overboard. I'm getting the whole bathroom boarded and skimmed and then painting most of it and tiling around the bath and shower area and above the sink.

I just want to know which boards to use. I was planning on using Moisture Resistant board around the bath and shower and on the ceiling and then normal plasterboard everywhere else. But is it worth using the MR Board if I'm having it skimmed? Or would it be better to use normal plasterboard, skimmed and then maybe tanked before tiling? Or just tiling straight onto the skim?

I'm just going to be using some bumpy white 20x20 wall tiles with a red pink mosaic accent all from Topps Tiles, see below. Unless there's a good reason not too use the Topps Tiles?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[/b]

 

[tpt]

personally i would use MR board on the whole thing except in the shower where you should use a concrete based board such as a tile backer board or aquapanel - and do not skim this.
Some would tank\concrete board the bath area but this can be overkill unless you have a shower over it.

if you were fully tiling then there would be no need to plaster at all, plasterboard is a better base really.

Theres nothing wrong with topps, the reason you see negative comments is due to their prices, especially on adhesives. If you want to shop around, i can send you some samples of the same products. just pm me.

 

[MrRichT]

Sorry should have said, we are having a p-shaped bath with shower fitted over. The two walls that will be affected are exterior brick walls, the side one also has a large window just to make things complicated! In fact the window will take quite a lot of the splashing from the shower, there's not actually that much wall that will be affected.

The problem is the bath doesn't take up the whole wall and so I will only be tilind about 3/4 of it. The other 1/4 will be painted. So do I get the plasterer to just skim up to the Aquapanel? And will he be ok skimming on the MR board?

Thanks for the offer of the samples by the way. To be honest though, the bathroom fitter gets a discount at Topps and if we have any problems I can easily return anything. Plus I'll be getting the adhesive and stuff from a trade plumbing place.

 

[kjacko]

Whilst i'm not a pro tiler/plasterer etc, just a diy'er, personally i'd tile the remaining 1/4 of the same wall and complete the finish with one look.
Or are thre tiles so expensive that to do that isn't an option?
I've part tiled a wall before and i really wish i'd done the whole thing, and considering you're tiling 75% of it......well, like i said, i'd opt for doing the remaining 25%.

Sorry, if it's not much help.

 

[tpt]

no problem re:using topps\not wanting samples. advice was genuine, i dont use this forum as a sales promotion area!

As with the last poster, personally i'd tile the lot and then not skim any of it (apart from the ceiling)

MR plasterboard is usually green in colour and is only resistant. use it on the ceiling and on the fully dry walls and on the bath\shower walls use cement based board such as Knauf Aquapanel (note, this isnt the same as lafarge aquaboard, which is just MR plasterboard) or one of the many tile backerboards such as marmox, no more ply etc and fix to the wall as per manufacturers instructions (usually dot and dab + mechanical fixing)

this way you save money on tanking and skimming