First up, the "before" shots. These were taken when we purchased the house (a little over a year ago). A lot has changed in the house since then but do your best to focus on the floors. The kitchen had very old and short carpeting while and the dining room was a lighter and fluffier. The entryway (not pictured) had a marble-ish tile of sorts.
Underneath the kitchen and dining room was a fantastic stone-patterned brown/green linoleum straight from the 50's. We didn't even wait to take it out. As we began to pull the linoleum we came across our first home-improvement hitch: the subfloor in these two rooms was particle board. After some reading it became obvious that if we wanted a stable floor to lay tile on we had to pull it out as well and replace it with something more rigid. So we did.
(For those of you interested in the engineering side of laying tile, all the trouble with tile come from one simple fact: it doesn't bend, it just breaks. If the subfloor isn't stiff enough, the floor will bend when people walk on it but the tile won't. Once enough force is put on the tile, it will simply crack. This has a big impact on how you build the structure of the house. The joist of the floor have to be close enough together to support the weight of the tile. If the subfloor is the wrong material or isn't thick enough it will bow between supports or deform as it absorbs and releases moisture in the air (the latter is the problem with particle board). The tile above it can't deform and instead cracks. The strength of tile, its hardness, is also its greatest weakness; it doesn't really bend even when you wish it would.)
The entryway was an entirely different surprise. Back when this house was built in the late 50's, laying tile was done differently. Rather than doing something like we did, a thick (~2 inch) bed a mortar was poured and the tiles were set directly in it. I discovered this when I started trying to chisel the tiles out. I was very dismayed at first but found that the job of tearing out that much mortar is not as hard as it may seem. The big saving grace is that mortar is not near as hard as concrete and it tends to break apart in chunks. In the pictures below you can see a metal mesh that was embedded in the mortar, kind of like poor-man's rebar.
Here's what the old subfloor looked like after we had torn everything out and cleaned up.
The next step was to lay down new plywood to replace the particle board we had torn out. The extra thickness gave us more rigidity for the tile so as to prevent cracking and breaking. When adding another layer like this, the only really important "secret" is to not align seams on one layer with seams on the next. This helps make the subfloor more rigid. In our case, our second layer was half-inch plywood, and lots of it.
We found out the entryway was uneven and so after filling in most of the 2 inch gap with plywood where the mortar previously was, I had to pour some self-leveling concrete to level it out. Pretty neat stuff, actually and it worked rather well. The first two pictures were taken just after I poured it (you can see reflections in the pool) and the last is after it had dried.
With the plywood in, we next install what is called an "underlayment" for the tile. Most people today use a cement board of some kind, the popular brands being Hardibacker or Durock. The biggest problems with these boards is that they can be hard to cut and attach to the subfloor and they are relatively thick (at least 0.25"). Our biggest concern with a think underlayment was our under-counter dishwasher. Our friends found out the hard way that by adding height to the floor, it is very possible to "tile-in" your dishwasher. They actually had to disassemble the dishwasher in-place under the counter to get it out when it came time to replace it.
So, to save height and time, we used a relatively new underlayment by Schluter Systems called Ditra. The material is basically a plastic waffle-like grid with a cotton backer. The plastic grid acts as a moisture barrier as well as a "decoupling membrane". The decoupling part is important because it allows our house to move (slightly) without forcing the tile to as well. If there was no decoupling, then the flexing of the house could crack and chip tiles as they were pushed against each other and the walls of the house.
(Historical note: centuries ago this was accomplished by laying a bed of sand between two beds of mortar. The sand was "strong" enough to support the weight of the tile but any lateral movement resulted in one mortar bed sliding past another. This isn't done much any more as the height of the two beds and the sand (not to mention weight) make it tough to work into modern buildings.)
Ditra is significantly thinner than cement board and rolls out like a thin carpet. Rather than nailing or screwing it to the sub-floor, you simply use a very thin layer of mortar and press it in. The material can be cut with a utility knife and installs very quickly. The only downside: it is a bit more expensive than cement board. I'm glad we used it, though, if for no other reason than the day-or-two times savings.
Now for the tile. The tile we had chosen was meant to resemble a wood plank and was rectangular in shape rather than square. No special instructions needed here. Slop on the mortar, spread it around, comb it with a trowel, and press in the tile. We decided to do a parque-ish pattern in the dining room (suggested by my father) and a linear pattern in the kitchen and entryway. Many days of mixing mortar, cutting and placing tiles, and generally making a mess. (The last picture shows where the parque patterns meets the linear one.)
The last big step was grouting. The color we choose was supposed to be right around the color of the tile but, for reasons I don't understand, it turned out much redder. Not the end of the world but a bit disappointing. We're looking into staining it a darker color but I'm guessing that won't happen for quite a while. Word to the wise: grout is cheap; test it in a small area before you commit to a color.
So that's that. We like the floor and are glad its done. The whole project took about 6 weeks or so; we obviously weren't working on it the whole time but on many days it was our life. My wife is glad to have all her kitchen appliances back (there are only so many meals you can cook on an electric skillet) and we're both glad that the house is finally back in order.
Our big thanks to our friend Michael for his guidance, expertise and assistance and also to Desha's parent's for loaning us a tile saw.
Good for people to know.
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