Ceramic Tiles – How To Half Tile a Wall

An eye catching way of using ceramic kitchen or bathroom tiles is to affix them to about 1.2m from the ground this is known as half tiling and looks really effective.

If you want to know how to half tile your walls then I suggest you read this entire article word for word.

For the inexperienced tiler it would seem sensible to start by applying whole tiles at floor or skirting board level. In fact this is a classic mistake as your floor will probably not be level and the impact of using it as your baseline will be to gradually force your tiles off square.

The correct method is to use a wooden guide batten. You fix this to the wall just below the lowest edge of the lowest row of tiles. Make sure your batten is level when you screw it or stick it to the wall. Then ensure that the gap below the batten is three quarters of tile width.

I always fit a vertical guide batten at one side of the area to be tiled. This ensures that your tiled columns are nice, neat and straight.

Now your guides are in place fit all your whole tiles working from the horizontal batten, centre outwards. Once your reach the top of the area i.e. half way up the wall you can remove the battens and then trim and affix all the tiles you need to cut.

I quite like to apply a trim across the top edge of the tiles as this finishes the project nicely. If you want to save some serious money I suggest you order your trims, tiles and grout online from one of the many discount ceramic tile stores that trade on the net.