Cement board will probably be a bit more expensive and will add time to your project, but the investment is totally worth it. Tile done right requires a solid substrate.
Lay only enough mortar that you can safely cover in about 10 minutes. This is the time it will take the mortar to start hardening.
Lay down a bit of mortar with your trowel, then press the fiberglass mesh tape into the joint. Then go over the mesh tape with your trowel, pressing it into the seams and locking it firmly in the mortar. Smooth out the resulting joints so that they don’t bulge out, feathering the edges.
TSP, or trisodium phosphate, is a great all-purpose cleaner if you need to use it. It cleans extremely effectively, but is no longer as widely used today as it was before because of environmental concerns.
Make sure you do a dry layout with your tile and spacers directly on the cement board before you lay down the mortar. A dry layout will allow you to visualize the room as it might be when everything is finished. Experiment with different layouts until the right one catches your eye. [6] X Research source
Lay down some floor tiles along one of the center lines to make sure you marked the center of the room properly. If you realize that your chalk lines aren’t square, redo them now.
If you end with a very small or very large space in comparison with the size of the tile you’re using, move everything down so the extra space is about the width of a half a piece of tile and snap new chalk lines to use when placing the tiles. You don’t want to have to cut your tile into small pieces to finish a row along the wall.
If you’re using tile cement, give it about 15 minutes to become tacky so the tile will stick properly. Use tile cement with linoleum and vinyl tiles, and thinset mortar with ceramic or porcelain tiles.
If you lay all the tile in the middle of the room first and then mark and cut your tile afterward, you only need to rent the wet saw for one day, saving you tile and money. As you lay down smaller pieces of tile in the corners of rooms, back-butter the individual tiles instead of messily trying to get mortar into the small nooks and crannies of your room.
Work quickly here. The grout sets up fast — considerably faster than the mortar does. For this reason work only in small areas before branching out.
