I have enjoyed a vast difference in tiling work this year. I am just finishing a wet room - couple of days fixing simple Topps Marfil ceramics 500x200 in brickbond (plus glass mosaic border). Room completed in 2 days plus grouting and finishing tomorrow. Its been nice to find something that rattled along at a good rate. My top speed this year has been 32 sq m per day laying a porcelain floor. My slowest speed has been 2.5 sq m in a day fixing Mandarin Stones Monastir Tula tiles to shower walls (only two short straights edges to square off of, not funny when you have to make vertical cuts round corners).
There is a great satisfaction in achieving volume, but sometimes a very slow job, involving challenges to my knowledge and experience at painfully slow progress can be exasperating yet ultimately highly satisfying when you see the results.
It seems increasingly that people start with "a simple kitchen splashback for you" that actually involves constructing a work access platform to work over a large Aga to set 100x25mm riven glass mosaics in a herringbone pattern with a circular border. Feature walls with splitface mosaics that take a week to clean the grout off; African encaustic patterned cement tiles that never cut cleanly where even pencil marks leave a stain; 1200x300 floor board replica porcelain with 1mm grout gaps; bathrooms with recesses on every wall for mirrors, shampoo and cleaning bottles; and pattern matching handmade tiles that are all different sizes.
When I started tiling, the measure of a quality tiler, was someone who could knock out a bathroom every two days. Now its someone who can make a silk purse out of the fanciest tiling ideas.
What do you like? Quick and simple tiling, or difficult and slow? 3_fall's posted work is a classic example of the expectations being placed on us now. It looks amazing today, but will it have become average by next year? Do you relish the opportunity to do more complex tiling, or dread the missed opportunity of laying acres of simple porcelain floor tiles?
Personally I love the complicated stuff, but it remains quite refreshing to hit a fast simple vein of tiling work now and then.
There is a great satisfaction in achieving volume, but sometimes a very slow job, involving challenges to my knowledge and experience at painfully slow progress can be exasperating yet ultimately highly satisfying when you see the results.
It seems increasingly that people start with "a simple kitchen splashback for you" that actually involves constructing a work access platform to work over a large Aga to set 100x25mm riven glass mosaics in a herringbone pattern with a circular border. Feature walls with splitface mosaics that take a week to clean the grout off; African encaustic patterned cement tiles that never cut cleanly where even pencil marks leave a stain; 1200x300 floor board replica porcelain with 1mm grout gaps; bathrooms with recesses on every wall for mirrors, shampoo and cleaning bottles; and pattern matching handmade tiles that are all different sizes.
When I started tiling, the measure of a quality tiler, was someone who could knock out a bathroom every two days. Now its someone who can make a silk purse out of the fanciest tiling ideas.
What do you like? Quick and simple tiling, or difficult and slow? 3_fall's posted work is a classic example of the expectations being placed on us now. It looks amazing today, but will it have become average by next year? Do you relish the opportunity to do more complex tiling, or dread the missed opportunity of laying acres of simple porcelain floor tiles?
Personally I love the complicated stuff, but it remains quite refreshing to hit a fast simple vein of tiling work now and then.
