General tips for laying tiles

Hi,
currently the screed drying program is running as part of our house construction. This will probably be completed in 2-3 weeks and today we have the so-called "tile meeting" with the site manager + tiler. There we will go through the house room by room and decide how/how much/where/in which pattern/in which direction to tile.

We have already chosen the tiles themselves some time ago. Tiling will be done in the hallway, guest WC, utility room, open living/kitchen area and in the main bathroom (upper floor). The tiles will be 30x60cm. A gray tone for the floor, a slightly lighter gray tone for the walls in the bathroom.

I assume that every builder has such a tile meeting with the construction company/the tiler as long as it is not done as self-labor and therefore I am hoping for your ideas/experiences.

What should we be prepared for? Are there important things to consider?
- Laying pattern lengthwise/widthwise (depends on the room? Rather elongated or square room?)
- How high do people still tile in bathrooms nowadays? Tile the shower completely up to the ceiling?
- Tiles only BEHIND WC/sink, or also to the right/left if a wall immediately follows there?

What we will definitely address is that in the "nice" rooms, i.e. hallway and living room, we want to install normal baseboards instead of a classic tile skirting.

Thanks in advance for your tips!

What we will definitely address is that in the "nice" rooms, meaning the hallway and living room, we want to install normal baseboards instead of classic tile skirting.

You can go ahead if you want, but your tiler will advise against it. My parquet installer also advised against it, even though he would have profited from it. The problem is that a straight wooden baseboard cannot compensate for the 1-2mm height difference between some tiles. That means you will have to do acrylic touch-ups everywhere on the wooden baseboard. Tile discussion hehe. You don’t have to make a science out of it. To be discussed: - Where what goes - Laying direction and pattern - Grout color - Silicone joint color (top and bottom) - Height of the tiles in the bathroom (in our case 4x30cm + grout everywhere except the showers) - Type of corner profiles and where they will be installed everywhere

Are you possibly a bit late with some of the points? With us, we already had the height of the wall tiles considered by the plasterer, and baseboards also need to be ordered at some point? (but we had separate trade contracts)

What else comes to mind immediately: clarify which color the grout should have.
For "joints" in the screed, they must be transferred to the tiles – where necessary/possible, I would adapt the laying direction to such joints and make sure a regular tile joint ends up over the separation in the screed.
Watch out for the "edge pieces," for example, if only 5 cm remains next to the wall and you might need to start the laying pattern differently. This gets especially tricky when you have to consider different sill heights for wall tiles – somewhere it usually just doesn't work out, and you end up with only a tiny tile piece.
Also, look at the laying pattern to see if you want certain symmetries.
The pattern itself could possibly still be vetoed by the tiler (I wanted a half-bond pattern; he rejected it because some tiles are not 100% flat, which makes heights/depths most noticeable).
Personally, I would always tile the WC as far as possible where accidents could splash. So yes, also the walls next to it and not just behind it.

We personally tiled about 150 cm high on the walls except in the shower, where it is room-high. We just had to pay attention to where it jumps from room-high down to 150 cm, but in my opinion, we managed that well. The approx. 150 cm height comes from full tiles and a finishing border.

So, we are done and have discussed all rooms. In the two showers, we will tile up to the ceiling. Otherwise, in the bathrooms around the toilet and elsewhere 1.20m high (e.g. the shelves). We have floor tiles in anthracite and wall tiles in a lighter gray. As a "highlight" we will also tile the shelves at the washbasin etc. with the darker floor tile. So basically all horizontal surfaces = floor tile.

As a laying pattern, we have decided on "random bond" in all rooms. The tiles will be laid crosswise when you enter the room.

In the hallway and living room, as planned, we will omit the tile skirting and will use regular baseboards there. We'll see how we manage to seal the gaps. In the utility room, kitchen, and bathrooms, the classic tile skirting will remain.