Addition Bathroom | Tiling Walls

We’re done with the floor, now onto tiling the walls! We have a lot of tile in here and it’s making a big splash. Follow along for the final weeks of this bathroom build.

Laying Tile

If you missed the floor tile, we covered that in our last post.

Grab your ear protection because we’ll be using the tile saw.

I decided on this wall tile called Mint Tea 6×6 T Square from Kate-lo Tile & Stone. I love all these colors, but I knew I wanted green from the start! I was originally thinking about a vertical stacked subway tile, but when I saw the squares I was sold. Kate-lo was also fantastic to work with.

wet blad tile saw

I got to cut tile with the wet saw, so that was exciting.

Laying the first course is the hardest part. It’s key to get it level so the rest of the wall is level and everything lines up.

wall tile DIY square stacked mint greenwall tile DIY square stacked mint green

We mortared the first course and put spacers between as we went. We let this dry overnight before tiling anymore.

wall tile DIY square stacked mint green

We leveled it many times to make sure it was perfect. The first row is the only time you’ll have to level, because everything else that follows will be perfectly spaced.

Put spacers top, bottom and both sides. Looks like we lost a few. 😮

Wet tile saw

We didn’t have to make too many cuts, but it was a full weekend of tiling nevertheless!

wall tile DIY square stacked mint green

It was a lot of area to cover! And with our wainscoting change, we ended up needed two more boxes of tile.

Accent Niche

accent shower niche

Remember my idea for an accent niche?

accent shower niche

Well I’m so excited with how it turned out!

accent shower niche

Joe and I put together a little art project mosaic from some samples I had.

I absolutely fell in love with this mural tile, but didn’t want it competing with my wallpaper so wanted to do it somewhere small.

accent shower niche

So this was the perfect little spot! Plus I got to use up samples. Win!

accent shower niche

Initially, I wanted to do the whole back wall as a horizontal niche/ledge. However, it’s an exterior wall so we couldn’t cut into the 2×4’s because it’s such an important supporting wall. Plus you generally don’t want to take too much insulation out of exterior walls. So Joe put the kabosh on that.

shower accent niche

This is all I will show you for now 😉

Wainscoting Height

bath tile wainscoting

One thing we didn’t take into account was where the outlets landed.

bath tile wainscoting

Rather unfortunate place to end the tile wainscoting…

bath tile wainscoting

We brought the vanity in to do a dry run of how it would look. Ideally, I think this tile height is perfect! It’s about 42″ here and clears the sink faucet.

bath tile wainscoting

But that leaves us with this awkwardness. We wracked our brains, and the best solution is to tile up another almost full row. We’ll add outlet extenders so the outlet plates will be flush over the tile instead of over the wall. Can’t be half on, half off. And Joe was not going to rip open the wall to move the electrical up.

Up another row we go

Grouting Wall Tile

grouting wall tile

After a weekend of tiling, we could move on to grout.

Joe tiling

Whew, stretch break

grouting wall tile

We used the same grout color for the wall as for the floor.

Pearl grout

It’s an off-white color (Pearl) that matches the floor and wallpaper really well.

grouting wall tile

This also took a full weekend getting into all these crannies

Grouting walls

Same process as the floor

Grouting walls green square stacked tile

This is definitely my favorite part! Sealing the tile is my least favorite. I did 3 coats to the walls and floor.

Grouting walls green square stacked tile

Ta dah! I don’t think that cove for the tub looks bad. If you’re wondering why we didn’t use the thinner backer board all the way up, it’s because it’s not as stable and these tiles are quite heavy. After this was done, we ran a bead of matching caulk around the bottom and in the corners.

green square bathroom tile stacked

I’m loving how this looks! It’s got a 3D effect. It’s got a hand-glazed look and a lot of variation so it looks a bit rugged, but also glossy and pretty. I like that it’s more green in some spots and blue in others. I tried to keep it “random” looking.

bathroom tile stacked squares green

Next up: Wallpaper, fixtures and trim

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