Mudroom Tile Book

Install hacks

1. Design on the sheet. A 12 in sheet is 6 × 6 tiles, so colour changes that land on sheet edges need no hand work. The Easy installs set is built this way.
2. Swap strips, not singles. Cut a whole row of 6 off a coloured sheet along the mesh and drop it into a white sheet. Borders and stripes placed on a sheet's outer row go fastest.
3. Pop and glue before you set. Pull single tiles off the dots at the kitchen table, stick replacements onto the mesh with a dab of glue, and let them dry. Setting pre-made sheets is far easier than placing loose tiles in thinset.
4. The doormat lands on whole sheets. A 36 × 24 in inset is 18 × 12 tiles, which is 3 × 2 full sheets with no cuts on any side. Lay the mat first, then work the field out from it.
5. Diagonal fields need a straight border. The harlequin is sheets laid at 45° inside the two ring band. Stock 2 × 2 checkerboard sheets do it with no hand work, and the band hides the triangular cuts.
6. Keep cuts plain. Every design here keeps the cut tiles at the walls in one colour, so the cuts never break the pattern.
7. Start from the centre line. Snap a chalk line down the middle of the length and lay out from there, so the edge cuts come out equal on both sides.
8. Dry lay and number. Lay every sheet out on the floor first and number the backs in order. Order 10% extra of each colour, all from one dye lot.
9. Ask about custom sheets. Some suppliers will mount a custom pattern onto sheets from a grid file. Worth asking before you commit to a busy design.

"Hand-set" counts the tiles that differ from their sheet's main colour, which is roughly the number of tiles you'd swap by hand.