How to Tile the Wall Around a Doorway
Tiling is a mostly straightforward process of applying adhesive and laying tile that most homeowners can manage. When obstacles become involved in the equation though, homeowners might consider calling in the experts. While tiling around a fixture in your home, such as a doorway, does require slightly more planning than tiling an empty wall, tiling the wall around a doorway relies on the same basic process as tiling the rest of a wall. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Coarse sandpaper
- Sanding block
- Tack cloth or wet rag
- Tile spacers
- Tile adhesive
- Putty knife
- Grout
- Bucket
- Trowel
Instructions
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1
Rough the wall up a little bit by rubbing the entire area to be tiled with a piece of coarse sandpaper on a sanding block. Then, go over the surface of the wall with a tack cloth or wet rag to remove the sanding dust.
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2
Begin your tiling project next to the doorway. Place a tile spacer in the size that the tile manufacturer recommends against the bottom edge of the doorway and the floorboard or floor. Place the tile so that it lines up evenly with the edge of the doorway and with the floor.
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3
Pull the tile away from the wall and apply an adhesive that is labeled for the type of tiles you are installing, such as slate or ceramic. Spread the adhesive in a thin, even layer with a putty knife.
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4
Continue up the wall, using spacers to separate tiles, and lay tiles up the edge of the doorframe. If you cannot lay a full tile at the top of the doorframe and have the top of the tile even with the doorframe, cut a tile down for each side, so that the top tile against the doorframe lines up with the top edge of the door.
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Lay the next row of tiles so that they go across the top edge of the doorframe, using the same method you used on the sides of the doorframe. Then, begin at the bottom again and make a new row up each side of the doorframe. When you get to the piece of tile that you had to cut down, cut tile pieces of the same size to lay horizontally next to them, which will give your wall a uniform style with full tiles throughout most of the wall and one strip of smaller tiles around the top of the door frame.
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6
Continue to lay rows to the edges of the wall, cutting the tiles on the outside edges down to fit in the remaining space. Then, move to the space above the doorway and lay the tiles upward, cutting the top row of tiles down to fit into the remaining space between the last full row of tiles and the ceiling.
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7
Grout the wall tiles after 24 hours when the adhesive is fully dry. Mix the grout according to the directions, apply the grout over the tiles with a trowel, so that the grout gets pushed fully into the spaces between tiles, and run the edge of the trowel across the tiles to remove the extra grout.
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