I am just in the stages of installing new flooring tiles in the kitchen and hardwood in the surrounding areas.

I know this may be the hardest thing in the world to visualize but under the cabinets of my island I am going to install tiles. Immediately on the other side of these cabinets (where there will be an overhang in the countertop) I would like hardwood. How would I measure exactly how much tile to use?
Or is there a trick to install this afterwards?

I found this picture which shows more or less by looking at the two different colours of the floor. This is what I would like it to look like.

loft

 

The only thing I can recommend is to measure carefully. How much tile to use is prety easy. You measure the floor area to cover. Take your tile size into consideration as you may have more waste with one size over another.

The trick is getting the cut sections and grout lines to end up where you want. You don't want to end up with narrow slivers of tile anywhere that's visible. I draw out the cabinets on the substrate then actually set a row of tiles in each x and y dimension on the floor including the grout spaces just to make sure I don't screw-up and get to the end of the room or edge of cabinet and do something that will look odd.

 

Like Dane, I like to do a dry installation of the tile to make sure it looks like I want it to before I break out the thinset.

Now, the basic questions - you're sure the subfloor and structure are up to tile?

 

Is the hardwood nail down, or floating?

I do a story board for tile installations. I basically lay the tile out in a long line across the floor, use spacers between each tile to get an exact layout. I then take a tape measure and lay it on top of the tiles and stretch it all the way to the end. I then record every measurement starting at zero and marking the exact distance to the start of tile one, then start of tile two and so forth until I finish the last tile. I then reference this story board like a bible throughout the build to verify my layout. This keeps you from constantly laying out tile, shifting, retesting, etc. Then all you need is to lay a tape down and look at the measurements to make sure you don't have any slver cuts as previously mentioned.

 

czizzi , Hardwood would be nailed down....

stickshift, is there anything specifically I should be looking for? I screw the plywood into the joists to help with squeaking

 

For nail down, you want minimum 5/8" for plywood and minimum 3/4" for OSB. This is for density and grab of the cleat or staple. OSB has a tendancy to blow out on the down side which would have an impact on holding power.

Do a layout on graph paper to help visalize what you have. Cut the picture up into squares (if "L" shaped) to calculate the area for each section and then add them together. Reference you story board to see how much waste will be from cuts.

 

Tile requires a pretty stiff floor. What is the composition of your current subfloor and the size, spacing and unsupported span of the floor joists?

Additionally, are the ceramic or porcelain tiles or a natural stone product like granite or slate?

 

I don't know thickness of current plywood sub floor but spacing between floor joists is 16inches.

Tile is a porcelain type.

 

What's the size and unsupported span of the joists?

Do you have heat registers in the room? Often lifting one of them out of the floor will allow you to see the layers of subfloor.

 

Ill check thickness tonight or tomorrow. What do you mean by unsupported joist?

 

He asked for the span of the joists. That means the measurement of the joists that have air under them, no support.

I think we know the joists' spacing is 16", do you know the species and their grade? Might find that info stamped on some of the joists.

Jaz

 

Im sorry. I still don't understand.

 

Your floor joists are supported from below by walls or beams and posts (maybe both). What we need to know is how far it is between those supports under the room you want to tile. In other words, what's the length of the joist with nothing but air underneath it.

Additionally, how big are the pieces of wood but width and height, not the length as that is taken into account with the span.

How's that?

 

Just as an FYI, before you install tile, you need to make 100% sure that your floor joists will support it and that your subfloor is perfectly level. We just had our house professionally remodeled and we had ceramic tile put in our kitchen and hardwood in the rest of the house and our project manager neglected to check the floor joists in our basement prior to the tile installation and both the tiles and grout ended up cracking and coming totally apart within a day or two of being installed and you could literally feel the tiles moving when you stepped on them, so they had to send someone in to put in some more floor joists in our basement and then they had to totally re-do the tiling from scratch with all brand new tiles. It was not fun, but the second time around there were no problems at all and the tile came out great.

 

Thanks, jwathas. Sometimes a real life story like yours will make people understand better than anything we can tell them.