Squaring The Floor For Tile Installation

For your tile flooring to look good, the tiles should be properly and neatly laid off on the floor. To do this, you should begin your tile installation journey by drawing a grid pattern starting at the center part and work your way out to the sides of the floor. With this, you can be able to ensure that the tile cuts at the floor's edges are consistent and uniform to the opposite walls.  

But how can you be able to do this? Before you start drawing the grid pattern, you will have to prepare your materials first. These include a tape measure, a pencil, a chalk snap line, and a carpenter's square.

To be able to get the central part of the room's floor, you will need to divide it into four quadrants. Find the center of the room and draw the intersecting vertical and horizontal lines. Each of the quadrants should have exactly the same measurement. For old homes, this can be a bit challenging as most of them are not built with square measurement.  

Here is the simplified step by step instruction you can use.

Take the measurement of the sides of the floor and then find the center of each side. Mark the middle area of each of the sides with a pencil. 

Connect the middle area of one side of the floor to the middle area of its opposite side by drawing a straight line. This should be your horizontal line. 

Do step number 2 again with the other two opposing sides. The line drawn will be your vertical line. The vertical line should intersect with the horizontal line that you have drawn first. 

Take your carpenter's square and lay it on each of the four corners of the intersecting lines to make sure they are all perpendicular. 

Be sure that each of the quadrants has a 90 degrees angle. If necessary, adjust  the line.

 
Now you can snap the string and start off with tile installation. 

You can start laying the tiles at the intersection of the two lines. From there you can work your way to one side and then to the other sides in an outward manner. 

One technique you can use to make sure that the tiles will look uniformly installed on the floor and to ensure that you have set up the grid pattern properly is to always start at the center and to never rely on the positions of the wall.