Question about a tile layout mistake I made in a Denver bathroom last month

I was setting a herringbone pattern with 6x24 planks and realized halfway across the floor that my starting line was off by a full inch, so I had to pull up 40 square feet of fresh mortar and reset the entire grid before it set.

2 comments

2 Comments

gavinwood4d ago

Did you check your subfloor for level before you started? @kim.hannah is right about pulling it fast, but sometimes a floor that's off by an inch means the framing or subfloor is out of square too. I'd throw a long level or laser on that area and see if the foundation settled before laying any more tile. An inch is a lot to blame on a layout mistake alone.

kim.hannah4d ago

That exact thing happened on a Denver job in LoHi last year, same 6x24 herringbone. Honestly, the only real fix is to pull it up fast before the mortar skins over. I keep a margin trowel and a 5-in-1 handy just for this. Trying to cheat a layout that far off will haunt you at the baseboard every time.