Grouting Porous Tile

One of the things that the homeowner loved about the tile I used for the backsplash (see this post) was the look of the porous tumbled marble. Most of the tiles were very textured, with some having decent sized impressions and holes in them. It's always recommended that you seal the tiles before grouting to help keep the grout out of the tile, however, with porous stone, the grout will still fill all those voids. So there are a couple of ways you can approach grouting these tiles.

ONE WAY- FILL THE HOLES

Probably the most common way is to just grout it all and fill the holes. They will still have the character of the porous stone, but the deeper pores will be mostly filled with grout. This is usually the best method because if you don't fill the pores, they will eventually get dirt in them or even food particles if it's around the countertop. These will be a major headache to try to clean later if they aren't grouted.

If you're filling the pores with grout, I'd suggest using a grout color that matches the stone. If you use a highly contrasting grout color, the filled pores may not look as natural.

ANOTHER WAY- DON'T FILL THE HOLES

Okay, you probably aren't going to be able to keep grout out of all the pores, however, you can use painter's tape to cover the faces of the tile if you want to keep the grout out. If you've got the desire and the time, you could actually tape the face of every tile.

I used this method with the backsplash to cover the pores on just a select few tiles that had the most character, trying to have some consistency throughout the backsplash. I used some larger blue painter's tape and cut it with scissors (rather than tearing it). This makes a clean cut that lays flatter against the stone making it easier to grout over.

After taping the stones I wanted to preserve, I grouted as normal right over the tops. I removed the tape after I had already sponged off the grout a couple times. The tape worked great and the homeowner loved the texture that it left in the tumbled marble.

Of course, when you're finished it needs to be sealed again, this time focusing on sealing the grout.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

A Tumbled Marble Backsplash Spices Up This Kitchen

Sometimes a kitchen can be quite nice and still lack a little 'wow-factor'. It was time to add some of that to this kitchen with a new tumbled marble backsplash.

The homeowners have great taste and had picked out a handful of various tiles that they liked. We talked over the layout and tried a few combinations before coming up with the final design.

The bottom 6" features a mosaic pattern made up of various shapes and colors of the stone. Above that I would use 4" square tumbled marble set on the diagonal. I was excited to get started.

The backsplash tile can be installed right over the drywall, provided that it is smooth and not damaged. This saved some prep time and I jumped right into getting the layout right. With this many different tiles involved it's tricky to not end up with small pieces of tile somewhere in the layout.

I laid the tile out on the countertop with spacers to get an idea of the design and measure the actual size of things. Then I installed the mosaic tile all the way around. It actually came on a 12" x 12" sheet that I cut in half. The slowest part is always cutting all those pieces that go around the outlets.


With the bottom tiles ready, I started laying out the top tiles on the diagonal. The second row of 4" tiles would alternate between the natural white and a chocolate-colored tile to add more interest. I wanted this to lay out so that the spacing of the accent tiles would not look awkward.

I used a sanded grout to finish it up. This is recommended because even though some of the joints are 1/8" or less many of the spaces are much larger because of the rough, uneven edges of the tiles. I sealed the tiles with two coats of sealer before grouting which is supposed to help the grout not get absorbed into the face of the tiles as much.

In the end, the backsplash looked remarkable and the colors blended perfectly with the maple cabinets and the solid surface counter.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com