How To Hang Large Tile On Shower Walls

Use a small amount of the excess mortar and spread it onto the back of a tile with the notched side of the trowel.

How to hang large tile on shower walls.

Dry lay the panels and measure them to see where you need to make cuts. Determine how much tile you ll need. Add up the wall areas and add 10 so you have extra tile for mistakes or future repairs. For our shower we chose a running bond pattern.

Before applying your tile to the wall decide on the layout and orientation of your tile by positioning the tiles on the floor. You ll need a design plan before you start attaching the tile. The staggering of tiles in thirds helps limit this effect. Install full piece tiles first and fill in with cut pieces as you go or install them at the end.

Turn over the trowel to the notched side and comb over in one direction. In our project one wall is 31 and the other is 36. This in turn creates a slight lip between two adjacent tiles. Set the tile panels on the side walls with thinset the same way as for the back wall using the starter board.

Run a damp sponge over the backer board in the area you intend to tile. One way to limit tile lippage is to stagger large format tiles into thirds. Measure the width of the shower walls on either side of the door. If you wait to install the cut pieces use a notched trowel to scrape the thinset from the wall so it doesn t dry before.

Large tiles tend to cup or bow upward in the middle of the tile.