I am hoping to redecorate my bathroom this year. At the moment the walls are covered with wallpaper, but I am thinking of tiling them this time around. Should I remove all the skirting-boards and tile right down to the floor, or is it OK to leave the skirting in place? Floor is T&G boarding, but covered with 6mm MDF to provide a flat surface for the vinyl floor-covering.
Advice welcome please
Hi and welcome.
A few things to consider.
How good is the plaster behind the wallpaper? It needs to be sound if you are going to tile on it.
The wallpaper needs to come off and the surface prepared to accept the adhesive.
There'll be plenty of videos on YouTube to help you.
But what I consider the most important, is the spacing of the tiles.
They need to be balanced, so you have a part tile of similar dimensions at each end of a wall and top and bottom.
I'd leave the skirting board on. You don't know what's behind there. If you tile to the floor, you could hit and crack one with a vacuum cleaner. If you are tiling above a bath or where you have a shower, you need waterproof adhesive.
Also think ahead, to any possible future changes in the bathroom. Ten years after tiling it, I took out the bath and replaced it with a walk-in shower. But I anticipated that might be necessary at some time for my wife, who has MS. But I'd bought enough tiles to cover this eventuality. Finding matching tiles at a later date is almost impossible, or what's available will be a slightly different shade.
