ceramic (porcelain) tile

diamond. make a dam using clay around the hole and fill with water.

no drywall in wet areas at all. build it up with whatever you want out of cement products to whatever heights you want it.

you can put the cement board against the wall studs, you could put it over the old drywall , but if the drywall is bad tear it out , and dont put up new drywall and cement board over it,its not neccesary. its not really much more work to take out the old drywall. you only need cement board under the tile , drywall on the parts that dont get wet. use the special screws for the cement board.if your house is over 30 years old and hasnt been redone you probly have drywall under the tile. a masonry bit will dril tile,its hard to get thru the glaze but then it goes on thru, i dont use lube on a small hole.. lucas

Guys, thanks for the great info. I don't plan (can't afford) on remodeling for 5 years or so, so at that point I can have the drywall replaced. I don't know for sure if there is cement backerboard behind the ceramic tile in my bathroom, but I do know for sure that where the top row of tile ends to the ceiling and the ceiling itself, it is drywall. The house is 40 years old, and there were no signs of rotting drywall when we bought it 2 years ago. I know it is drywall on the ceiling and top 1/4 of the walls because I had to cut a hole to put in an exhaust fan.

I myself have never felt the texture of cement backerboard, so can it be painted over just like drywall (if there is a section without tile on it), or does it need to be covered with tile?

Actually my wife just reminded me, that it wasn't exactly drywall in our bathroom ceiling (and the whole house for that matter), it was actually some kind of plaster board. Is that more water resistant than drywall?? Either way, should I use a specific kind of paint on the bathroom ceilings and walls that aren't tiled? Exterior paint maybe??

Thanks again for your super information.

when i redid tile in mybathroom, i took the tile off, took a saw and cut the drywall on the edge of where the tile ends, then removed the old drywall . the drywall was good above the tile,,, and cut the cement board to fit with a mosonary blade on a circular saw.(cement board is dusty to cut, but really not much different than putting up plywood or drywall.its same thickness so it doesnt stick out) then laid up the tile just over the line where drywall begins. i dont know how cement boards hold paint, its not as smooth as drywall , just before i painted washed the drywall and painted with latex interior paint and it has held up, dad allways used oil base gloss in bathrooms buts its brighter... lucas

Bosch masonry bit w/oil is the way I went. The instructions said try to 'chip' the surface as a starting point where you want to drill.

I had to drill 4 holes to use to install my shower door. It was slo-o-ow tedious work. Use a slower speed rather than fast.

I burned up 3 cheap "diamond" HFT bits first.

you have to use coolant with diamonds. they can't be used dry. using them on the wall is pretty hard to do, but can be done with someone spraying a stream of water on them whilst you're drilling.