How to tile a kitchen floor

Video by Tommy's Trade Secrets. This walk-through is based on the video "Tommy's Trade Secrets - How To Tile A Floor" from the Tommy's Trade Secrets YouTube channel, which takes you through the whole process from preparation to finishing. The section on finding the centre point of the room before laying a single tile is particularly worth watching — it is the kind of thing that separates a tidy job from one that ends up with a sliver of tile in a conspicuous corner.

1. Prepare the subfloor

Ceramic and porcelain tiles need a firm, flat, and stable base. If the subfloor flexes or dips, the tiles will crack — it is just a matter of time. In most older East Kent homes you will be working over either concrete or timber floorboards. Concrete is generally fine as long as it is clean, dry, and not crumbling. Sweep and vacuum it thoroughly, then check for any high spots or holes with a long straight-edge and fill them with floor-levelling compound.

Timber floors are trickier. The boards need to be well fixed down — go around with a drill and add extra screws wherever they dip or creak. Once the boards are tight, lay a sheet of 6 mm flexible plywood over the top, fixing it at 200 mm centres with 38 mm screws. This is not a step you can skip. Tiles laid directly onto springy floorboards will crack within months. The ply decouples the tile from the movement in the timber beneath.

2. Set out the tiles before you mix any adhesive

Find the centre of the room by snapping chalk lines between the midpoints of opposite walls. The point where they cross is your starting position. Now do a dry run — lay tiles out from the centre towards each wall without any adhesive, using tile spacers to represent the grout joints.

What you are looking for is the size of the cut tiles at the edges. If the line ends up leaving a sliver of less than half a tile at one wall, shift the whole layout by half a tile in that direction. A thin sliver of tile at the skirting board looks poor and is difficult to cut and fix neatly. To be fair, most people skip the dry run and then wonder why the edge cuts look awkward. Spending twenty minutes on this saves a lot of head-scratching later.

3. Mix and apply the floor tile adhesive

Use a flexible floor tile adhesive rather than standard wall tile adhesive — floor adhesive is designed to cope with the movement and loading that floor tiles experience. Mix to a smooth, lump-free consistency. It should hold a notch cleanly when you run a trowel through it; if it slumps immediately, it is too wet.

Spread the adhesive with a notched trowel — a 6 mm V-notch is typical for tiles up to 300 mm, and a 10 mm or 12 mm notch for larger format tiles. Work in sections of about a square metre at a time so the adhesive does not skin over before you get the tiles down. Comb the adhesive in one direction only; that way you can spot any high ridges before a tile goes on top of them.

4. Lay the tiles from the centre outward

Start from your chalk line intersection and work outward towards the walls, placing tiles in a pyramid or quadrant pattern rather than one row at a time. Press each tile firmly into the adhesive with a slight twisting motion, then check it with a rubber mallet and a small piece of straight timber to bed it evenly. Check every few tiles with a spirit level to make sure you are not building up a ridge or a dip.

Use tile spacers consistently throughout — 3 mm is standard for most floor tiles, though large format tiles often look better with a 2 mm joint. Do not stand on freshly laid tiles. It sounds obvious, but in a small kitchen you sometimes have no choice — if you must, lay a board across several tiles to spread the load and do not put your full weight on a single tile.

5. Cut the edge tiles

Measure each cut individually rather than assuming rows are all the same size — walls are rarely perfectly parallel, so the gap will vary slightly. Mark the cut line on the tile with a pencil and score it with a tile cutter. A manual snap cutter handles most straight cuts quickly and cleanly. For L-shaped cuts around door frames or pipe collars, use an angle grinder with a diamond blade, or hire a wet saw for a larger job.

Always wear eye protection when cutting tiles. Porcelain in particular throws sharp fragments. That said, a sharp blade or a good quality snap cutter will give you a cleaner edge and is worth the small extra cost over a cheap tool that chips and struggles on harder tiles.

6. Grout the joints and finish the edges

Leave the adhesive to cure fully before grouting — at least 24 hours in normal conditions, longer in cold weather. Mix the grout to a thick paste, working it into the joints with a rubber float held at 45 degrees to the tile face. Remove the excess by dragging the float diagonally across the tiles, then clean up the haze with a damp sponge before it sets. Rinse the sponge frequently and wring it out well; too much water will weaken the grout.

Run a bead of flexible silicone along the joint where the tiles meet the skirting board and any fixed units. This is an expansion joint, not just a cosmetic touch — it allows the floor to move very slightly with temperature changes without cracking the grout or lifting a tile. Use a colour that matches your grout and tool it neatly with a wetted finger or a silicone tool.

When to call a handyman

Call Richard if the subfloor needs plywood overlaying and you are not confident drilling into the boards, if the kitchen layout involves a lot of intricate cuts around units or doorways, or if you simply want the job done without the weekend of work. Tiling a kitchen floor is very achievable as a DIY project, but it is one of those jobs where mistakes are permanently fixed into the floor — having someone experienced do it means you are not staring at wonky grout lines for years.