Make a hole!!! Ummm, sorry, had a little flashback there for a second. Where was I? Oh yeah, drilling a hole in a tile. When you tile your shower wall you will usually have at least one or two holes that need to be taken out of your tile. This is often a huge pain in the ass and sometimes difficult to do without cracking the tile. So I’m gonna show you how I do it. This will not guarantee that your tile will not crack! It does, however, greatly diminish the possibility. This method works with all ceramics and porcelains as well as natural stones such as granite, marble and travertine.

If at all possible try to lay out your tile so that any pipes or fixtures fall on a grout line. If you can do this you can simply cut a small square out of the edge of it with the wet saw and forgo the whole drillin’ a hole thing. I know, it’s not always possible. In fact it rarely happens in a normal tub surround. So lets drill a hole in that sucker!

Here’s what you need: a tile (just seeing if you’re paying attention), drill, hole saw (more on these in a sec) a 2×4 with a hole drilled into one end of it  just a bit larger than the size of your hole saw bit, and a sponge. When you mark your tile for the location of the hole I find it easier to simply mark a cross at the center of the pipe rather than marking every side or drawing a circle where the pipe is located.

Diamond or carbide hole saw bits. The bit that I use is nothing special – I bought it at Home Depot, seriously. It is a 1 1/4″ diamond-carbide bit. You can see it in the photo above. This method works with any size or type of bit. There are, of course, very expensive bits available for this. There really is no need to spend $150 on a bit to drill a hole unless you have special tile – like glass. I think mine was $25 or $30 and I’ve had it for about six months – the same bit.

I do not use the pilot bit in my hole saws! A pilot bit is a smaller bit that looks like a normal drill bit meant to center on your mark and guide the rest of the bit. It is my experience that these crack more tiles than mosaic artists. Some hole saw bits come with them and some don’t. If yours does you can simply remove it by undoing the allen-headed lock screw.

The first thing you want to do is drill a hole through your sponge. You heard me read that correctly – drill a hole through your sponge with your hole saw bit – you don’t need to wet it first – do it while it’s dry. After you get a hole drilled through your sponge – soak it down really well and throw it at the neighbor’s cat! Or, you know, whatever you want to do with it. Keep the little round plug that you drilled out of it, though.

The great thing about this sponge plug is it happens to fit inside your hole bit perfectly – imagine that! Soak that plug with water and stuff it inside your bit. This will keep your bit cool as you drill your hole and eliminates the need to stop every few seconds to soak your bit in cool water. You still need to stop every so often and dip it in water just to re-soak the sponge but it really helps keep everything cooled down so you can concentrate on making the hole rather than not burning everything up.

Now take your 2×4 with the hole drilled in one end of it and center the hole over your center mark on your tile. The hole in my 2×4 is bigger than yours (nanana!) that’s why it isn’t centered – yours should be centered provided you drilled it just a little larger than your bit.

The reason for the 2×4 (other than as a guide) is to apply even pressure across the tile as you drill into it. The biggest reason for cracked tile is uneven pressure on the tile as you are making the hole. As you drill you are putting considerable pressure on and around the spot you are drilling and barely any on the rest of the tile. The 2×4 equalizes this.

When you place your bit inside the hole to start drilling you want to press down on the 2×4 as you drill. Not so much as to crack the tile, but enough to stabilize the it and apply even pressure to the entire face. Then just start to drill SLOWLY! Always drill slowly – take your time. If you go full-speed it will create undue chatter on the bit and overheat everything.

Let the bit do the work! Do not press down hard on your drill, just gentle, even pressure. Extra pressure on that spot will cause your tile to crack (and, of course, your dog will burst into flames). Just keep enough pressure to keep the bit snugly against the tile while the bit makes the hole. The bit will drill the hole – pressing harder on the drill will not.

One of the keys to drilling a hole in tile is keeping everything cooled down. Going too fast causes vibration on the tile and overheats (and ruins) your bit. The sponge plug inside the bit helps tremendously with this. Stop periodically and dip the bit in water to re-soak the sponge.

If you slowly move the handle of the drill from side to side as you drill, rather than simply drilling straight down, it will create a little bit larger circle for your bit as you get deeper into the tile. This will remove a little bit wider groove for the bit to get into and releases some of the pressure as you drill.

The keys to successfully drilling without cracking the tile are to keep everything cool and eliminate as much vibration and uneven pressure as possible. If you can do that you can drill the hole perfectly every time anywhere in the tile – even very close to the edge. I usually only crack tiles now when I’ve had too much coffee (no such thing) or I’m pissed off. At that point a sponge plug isn’t gonna save me.

We, meaning us evil, scheming people in the tile industry, have a bad habit of using words that are not easily understood or recognized by the general public – and that’s a bad thing. Well, I think it’s a bad thing anyway, since the general public are the ones buying the tile – Hello, McFly??? Take for instance those three ridiculously nondescript words up there: Honed, rectified, and gauged – as well as the word ‘nondescript’. Okay, we’ll leave the last one out of this discussion.

Taken alone they each have very distinct meanings – easy enough. However, when used next to the word tile or stone, they tend to confuse. So I’m gonna try to clear it up a little bit for you so you know what a gauged slate is when you see it, as well as help you find the word you need when you know what you’re looking for but don’t know what word you need. (Is anyone else dizzy right now? No? Just me? okay…)

Honed

Honed is used next to different types of natural stone – most commonly with slate – as in ‘honed slate’ (didn’t see that coming, did you?) Although most common with slate it is also used with any natural stone product available. Honed stone simply means that the surface of the stone, has been ground to a smooth, flat, consistent surface. It also means, in the case of normally shiny stones such as granite or marble, that the polish or shine has been removed leaving a matte (unpolished) surface.

If you think about a slate tile (and honestly, who besides me, does that?) with its rough, textured, uneven surface, that would be an example of regular slate – not honed. If that slate tile were ground down with a smooth, consistent, flat surface it would be honed. Just like the tile installed in this Full Kerdi Walk-in Slate Shower with a Mountain Silhouette Relief  installed by Roger from Tile Art in Fort Collins, CO – TileArtCenter.com.

That, by the way, was an absolutely shameless plug for a very excellent tile contractor – me. See, when I self-promote I don’t jack around. Unabashed self-promotion aside, that is a photo of honed slate installed on a shower wall. See how flat and unshiny it is – honed.

That was relatively painless, wasn’t it? Which brings us to our next obscure word…

Rectified

Rectified is a term most often used with manufactured tiles such as porcelain as in, you guessed it, ‘rectified porcelain’. Natural stone tiles are rarely clarified as rectified because they normally are.

Rectified tile means that each tile is identical in size – length and width. As in each 12 inch tile is actually 12 inches – exactly. And each one is identically sized. Or, more accurately, if each 12 inch tile is exactly 11 7/8″ wide, they are all exactly 11 7/8″ wide. The ’12 inch’ part isn’t the important part – the ‘identical’ part is.

What is the difference between a rectified ceramic and porcelain and one that isn’t rectified, you ask? Glad you asked. A normal (non-rectified) ceramic or porcelain tile is formed and baked. This baking process will cause the tile to shrink ever-so-slightly and each tile may shrink a differing amount. This will lead to tiles that are not identically sized. Although the difference in tiles may be only 1/64″ or smaller, if you run a row 25 feet down a floor you may end up with a total 1/2″ difference overall.

Now this is not normally a problem and is dealt with as you are setting the tile by nudging each tile to where it needs to be to make up for this difference. If done correctly you’ll never know it’s there. It’s completely normal.

A rectified tile, on the other hand, is baked then cut to size. All the shrinking will take place during the baking process so after it is cut to size it will remain that size – forever. This makes it much easier, quicker and cleaner to work with and allows for a smaller grout line than may be required for a non-rectified tile. All rectified tiles are cut to an identical size. This is the reason that natural stone tiles are not referred to as rectified – they should all be cut to an identical size during the manufacturing process.

So, if you want really, really small grout lines and an absolutely straight, unvarying grout line, rectified tile or natural stone tiles are the way to go. They are so much easier to keep layouts consistent and lines exactly where you want them. Easier, in this respect, is relative since I prefer the smallest grout line possible with any given tile. The slate shower you see above has 1/16″ grout lines on the wall – this is nearly impossible to do with a tile that is not rectified. You simply have no room in the grout line to make up for inconsistencies in tile size.

*Note: not all slate tiles are rectified! Slate is the only (common) natural stone tile that is not normally rectified unless specifically stated.

Gauged

Gauged stone is a bit more difficult to explain inasmuch as there are a number of things or descriptions of what constitutes a gauged stone. In the most common usage it simply means that each tile is an identical (or nearly so) thickness. This attribute, however, may also be referred to as ‘calibrated’ stone.

Technically gauged means that the backside of the stone has been ground down to a flat, or more accurately, consistent, rough finish. Going back to slate (since there are so many variations of slate stone it is the easiest example) it means the backside of the slate has been ground down to a flat, normally grooved, surface. This process makes each slate tile nearly (if it is calibrated) an identical thickness – usually within 1/16″ or so.

With most stone tiles this is not really a designation you need to look for – unless it is slate. Most all other natural stone tiles (granite, marble, etc.) are cut to an identical thickness. Slate is the exception because, for the most part, it is meant to have a natural, rough, uneven surface. If you want that – don’t be concerned with a gauged or calibrated designation. If you want tile like that shower wall – it needs to be gauged and calibrated.

So there you have it – the three obscure words badly explained in an effort to further confuse you. I do understand that for normal people – that is people that don’t stand in showers all day – there will still be a bit of confusion especially about the whole ‘gauged’ and ‘calibrated’ thing. If you have any questions about it at all please feel free to ask what the hell it is in the comment section below. If you are new to my blog I actually do answer every question around here. I’m just super-cool like that.

Installing the tile

So now that you have a big waterproofed hole in your shower wall whaddya gonna do with it? (If you do not have a waterproof hole in your wall start with Building a Shower Niche Part 1 and Building a Shower Niche Part 2.) I’ll just kick back and finish my beer Pepsi while you read those.

Once your niche space is waterproofed you can do just about anything you want with it as far as design is concerned. That is not to say you should cut out and build the niche space then decide what to do with it – you need to know what you’re going to do with it before you start.

Run tile up to niche sides

The niche I’m using for these posts is simply an empty shelf in the wall. There are no additional shelves or design elements incorporated into it. We’ll get to that in a bit. This one is very simple, though. We will just place one full tile in the back and install bullnose pieces on the sides.

You can start by running the remainder of the wall tile up to and around the bottom of the niche and the sides. (I did not do both sides of my niche yet because of the distance to the back wall – you should.) Do not run the tile over the top of the niche yet.

If you’ve planned it correctly your grout lines should be lined up with the top and bottom of the niche like they are in the photo. Depending on your layout, design, or framing this is not always possible but if you can line them up it looks better most of the time.

I’ve built this niche to be the exact size of one full tile and exactly as deep as the bullnose is wide. The overall size is 13 x 13 x 3 inches. We will install the full piece on the back wall first. With the field tile installed up to the niche you will notice that there is actually more than three inches from the back of the niche to the face of the field tile – that’s normal, don’t panic.

Photo 1 - Spotting the back of the tile

To enable you to adjust the back piece of tile we need to install it differently than normal. We will not be simply spreading the thinset on the wall and back-buttering the tile and slamming it in there. If you do that you will never be able to adjust it. What we need to do with the back piece is called ‘spotting’ the tile. Place five big globs (that word just made me giggle – I don’t know why) of thinset onto the back of the tile like photo 1.

Spotting the tile will allow you to move the tile in or out and make small adjustments to get your bullnose absolutely even with the field tile. If you install it normally (with full coverage) any adjustments would be impossible.

Placing the back wall tile in the niche

Place that tile into the back of your niche. Do not push it all the way in yet! Get it to about 2 3/4″ back from the face of the field tile.  In other words you want the space from the face of the tile on the outside wall to the tile in the back of the niche to be about 2 3/4″.

If you push it back any further than that it will not be out far enough to contact the back of the bullnose piece and you will have a space between the back and bullnose piece. If it is too far back at any point you will need to start over. Pulling it out is a pain in the ass – so don’t do that.

Now start with the bottom piece of bullnose. Just backbutter the tile and stick it onto the bottom part of the niche.

Bottom piece of bullnose installed

Notice in the photo above how the front of the bullnose is not yet flush with the field tile? That’s the way it should look when you first get it in there. Now you want to SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY wiggle the back piece of tile back and forth just enough to make the bullnose flush with the field tile. Remember, if you go too far you get to start all over. Unlike most things do-overs in tile installation aren’t always a good thing.

Concentrate mostly on the bottom of that back piece, we’ll take care of the top after we get the bottom flush. When it is flush you should place a small level on the bullnose piece to ensure that you still have the small slope towards the front so water drains properly.

Bottom piece of bullnose installed flush

When you have the bottom piece installed you need to install the top piece next. The niche tile installation should be completed in this order so that when you install the side pieces they will support the top piece without any additional bracing. So what are you waiting for? Get the damn thing in there already.

Top piece of bullnose installed

Since there is no tile above your niche to gauge how far to push it in we need to figure out another way to do it. Lucky you! I’ve already done that. Take your straight-edge or level and place it against the face of your field tile from below the niche to above the niche. You should lay it so that the entire front of the niche is flat and flush. You will probably need to wiggle it back and forth to get everything pushed back flush. You can also hold a scrap piece of tile up above the top piece of bullnose to ensure it is in the correct place.

Once you get the top piece in there you need to measure and cut the side pieces. Measure and mark the cuts for the bottom of the side pieces. The measurements at the back of the niche will be different than the front due to the small slope of the bottom piece. If you try to cut the top of the side pieces they will not fit correctly.

Side pieces of bullnose installed

Now take your straight-edge or level and place it against the face of your field tile and niche in several different directions to make sure everything is flush and even.

And there you have it – rubber ducky storage!

Tiling the niche is complete

Now at this point you can either let it set overnight and cure fully so nothing moves as you are finishing the remainder of the tile, or you can go ahead and finish the tile now.

Due to the order in which you’ve placed the bullnose pieces in the niche you can go ahead and place the tile over the top of it and the top bullnose piece will support it since it is braced by the side pieces.

Be aware, however, that before the thinset is fully cured there will probably be movement in one direction or another as you are working around your niche. So pay close attention to anything that moves and make sure you either brace them to remain where you want them or use some blue painters tape to hold them in place. Believe me, it sucks when you come back the next day and something has moved.

I was going to describe different layout and design choices but I’m already half drunk this post is already so long I’ll just put all that in a separate post. With my tendency to babble endlessly give you as much information as possible I’m certain that post will be long enough anyway.

If you simply want a square niche the size of one tile that is as far as you need to go. The entire process is there. If, however, you want all that fancy-ass stuff like listellos, shelves, arches, or any of that you should probably read the next post before starting. Either way, take a break. Too much of a good thing can be draining.

I’ll leave you with a photo of the completed shower with the niche I’ve used for all these posts. If you look closely, or you know, click on the damn thing, you will actually see two of them – one on each wall. If you want that just start at the beginning and repeat, but turn around and face the other wall first.