Laying Tile for a Kitchen Countertop

Video Transcript

"I’m Lee; I have a degree in architecture, about ten years experience in the construction field, and today we’re doing a designer countertop. We’re using almost the same colors as we did in the back counter, but not quite the same. These will carry out into the dining room. We have our lines drawn as reference marks, right along the edge right here. So what we want to do- just take up your spacers, just move the tile out like this, out of the way. You can move it straight out if you want- however you want to move it. Pile your spacers to the side. And then I’m going to pick this up.

And just, with your trowel, notched trowel, go right up to your reference lines, but don’t cover them completely up. And when you first start out, it’s going to take awhile because it’s slow going to get this first area all set up. See, there was a lump in it right there, so you want to crush the lump and mix it up a little bit just in case. Just remember to go to your reference lines, but don’t cover them up so you can’t see them. And you usually- say on the floor you have one long reference line that will go through the entire house, or maybe it will go through the entire room. Scrape the excess back into your pan or bucket. And if you have a few little spots here, that’s fine. And you want to start off with this one right here in the center, really. And you’re not going to press it down, you’ll lay this one in, too, and you’re going to lay this one in. lay everything in that touches a reference line. And you just line it up by sight or use one of the other pieces of tile. You just want to make sure you get this part correct because it will determine everything else. You can see how it’s off a little bit here, so just scoot the whole thing this way until you can see the reference line along this line. And just keep putting your spacers in. and when you get two sides done, that’s when you would put in your center tile.

And then, once you have all of your pieces in, we’re just going to press it together. And you will take these spacers out once it dries. And just let that sit up overnight, and that’s the way you would design the starting point of your countertop."