How to Lay Out a Tile Countertop

Part of the Video Series How to Remodel Your Kitchen

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An expert shows how to lay out a simple tile design for a kitchen countertop in this free online DIY home improvement video.

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Video Transcript

How to Lay Out a Tile Countertop
I’m Lee. I have a degree in architecture and about ten years experience in the construction field. Today we’re tiling an older countertop. We’ve already prepared the surface and now we’re ready to decide on what kind of design you want. If you want it laid just straight out outright, if you want to do like three different colors. Just lots of things you can do. I’ve already decided on a design for mine, which we’ll get to after awhile. But if you - say you just want it laid out with square, twelve by twelve tiles. You want to see about how many tiles are going to fit on this bottom surface. Now, don’t forget, this tile goes down below the top of this tile. So you don’t ever lay it out from the Formica to the edge, you lay it out from the tile to the edge.

And then you want to do spacers if you want. They come in all different sizes. On this one, we are doing quarter inch spacers because that looks the best with twelve by twelve tile. Just lay it out. They do sell spacers that are three sided, also. Or you can cut your own if you want so that you don’t run into the problem. Place the spacers down on the bottom here. Place one between the tiles just like this…in all the corners. And then, just pour these out. Place them like that and you can slide this whole thing up against the sink itself. And you’ll just have a little quarter inch space all the way around the sink. They go at every junction. Even if you’re up against - say you want to go all the way up against this - you still want to put a spacer because it will just look so much better.

And that would just be laying it out just on a square basis. Now this one is overhanging here, so you would have to mark it and cut it. Now it’s best if you have a bunch of marking and cutting, to lay it all out, with spacers, and get it all exact - you know, get everything centered, which you’ll see when we do ours. Because if you don’t you’ll end up with one cut that starts real small and then gets real big and that’s just going to look bad. And you also want to remember, even though you’re using spacers, if it doesn’t look right, that’s going to mean more to somebody than it being right. And that’s how you would lay out just a square design tile on countertop.

About the Expert

Expert: Lee Wallace has a degree in architecture from Texas A&M University. Read More