Hi,
I have been asked to tile my brother-in-law's downstairs toilet (I've never understood why they are called "cloakrooms" when they are not used to store coats).
It is wallpapered at the moment. He would like it tiled to dado-rail height and keep it wallpapered above this level. The one wall looks pretty awful. The plaster has blown near the bottom of the wall, which is one reason that he wants work done on the room.
When I tiled my own bathroom, one wall was not even and I had naively hoped that I could use the adhesive to level out the imperfections in the wall. I am not happy with the results to this day. I would like to redo that one wall, when I get round to it.
I've learnt my lesson and I think the best thing to do would be to make good the toilet wall before tiling. I think I could do any of the following:
- skim the wall with plaster
- fit plasterboard to the wall.
- fit plywood to the wall.
I know 9mm is not much but with this being a small toilet, I'm not sure I would want to put plasterboard on the walls and make the room any smaller. OTOH perhaps I am being silly to worry about 18mm?
I think he was hoping I would tile the bottom half of the wall without disturbing the top half. The problem with this is that it stops me using the plasterboard approach as this would make the bottom half protrude more (9mm+tile width) than the top half IYSWIM.
Perhaps I could use something thinner to line the walls. I could skim with plaster or I see the Wickes web site sells 3mm plywood. I've never seen that before. I wonder if that would be any good? Would a grab adhesive be sufficient to hold it or would you use (stainless) screws?
Or should I tell him I need to do the job properly, line the whole wall and redecorate the top half at the same time. It's more work but a better result and what I would be tempted to do in my own home.
Any other advice about tiling over uneven walls?
TIA