A New Tile Surround

Today, I finished up a job for some clients in Inglewood who are selling their house and wanted to upgrade their surround to tile. Here's the before and after picture:


I ripped out the old acrylic surround which was made up of around 5 large pieces that were glued to the wall. Overall, it did a pretty good job keeping the water in the bathtub, but it didn't match the tile that filled the rest of the room.

For this job I used 4 1/4" square white tiles and white unsanded grout. With 1/16" grout lines, unsanded grout was the recommended choice. They add sand to the mix whenever your grout lines are larger, say 1/8" or more. The sand helps the grout stay firm in the larger gap.

The unsanded grout also has a different feel to it even though the process is the same. It feels more like a gooey slime while the sanded grout feels more like mortar. I actually found it easier to work with and it wasn't quite as messy as the sanded grout.

Anyway, the project turned out great. There were some interesting transitions to old tile and trim that had to be caulked with silicone, but it came together well.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com