Tiling a hallway with a pinwheel pattern

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Gary Tarr

Member
Joined
May 19, 2020
Messages
19
Location
Va
Hi All,

I am planning the tiling of a hallway with a pinwheel pattern. See below. Although I don't have a lot of experience, I have tiled some before, but never with a pattern. The way I have tiled in the past is to set all the field tiles first. Then come back and fill in the edge pieces. I was wondering what the common practice is when tiling a pattern.

Thanks in advance,
Gary




20220908_210849[1].jpg
 
Looks like you have it centered well with no small cuts. I like that. If it’s an L shaped hallway as it appears to be try to center in both directions. Since you went as far as you did laying it out dry I like to make my cuts dry also. Finish a section of hallway leaving a diagonal across the width to work off of. That way you can keep your body off your finished work and spread your thin set the entire width of the hall instead of fiddling with cuts later.

What kind of subfloor is under that vinyl? Need any leveling? Looks like the baseboard was just done. I like to remove the baseboard, more wiggle room on the cuts and you probably won’t need quarter round after. Nicer look. And try to get that vinyl off the floor too if you can.
 
Thanks for your advice. It sounds like the way to go is to make the cuts in advance. The subfloor is a cement slab. I will give it a shot at removing the Vinyl but it is down pretty tight.

Thanks again
Gary
 
The vinyl looks to be 1980s so it probably contains the 'A' word.
I'd certainly want to scrub it clean with some type of cleaner maybe even using a little Windex in a large pail of warm water. Windex doesn't leave a residue. This will clean the floor and give the thinset a little more bite. Scrub it with one of those blue green colored barbecue grill scrubbers and the Windex infused warm water. They're kind of like a Scotch-Brite pad but look more like a great big piece of shredded wheat. 😁
You'll find those in the same section as sandpaper at a hardware store and you can buy a little plastic handle for them. The handle or grip has little tangs on the bottom side to hold on to the scrubber part. It works sort of like Velcro does.
If there's a rental place that rents buffers, they also make buffing pads of a similar material and I think the black colored one is the roughest grit they have.
Whatever you do, just be sure you get the vinyl nice and clean.
....... Now that said, if you just drawn all your layout lines doing what I just suggested I might totally remove them. 😱
 
The possibility of asbestos worries me a bit as the flooring was installed in 1983 when the house was built. I will do the scrubbing as you suggest. I can always do the lines again.

Thank you for your advice
Gary
 
The floor is flat and level. It is on a cement slab. I also plan to use the spin doctor leveling system. Hopefully, this will reduce the lippage.

Gary
 

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