How I Tiled My Shower Surround and Marble Floor

It’s about to get exciting…

Before diving into the tile details, a quick aside: I love Jones Soda for the random fortunes under the cap. One recently read, “Tasks where skill is essential may be accomplished.” The “may” felt timid, but this project proved we were doing more than maybe—we were doing.

You might remember a recent peek at the tile job. In Chapter Three of this bathroom redo we spent a long weekend installing drywall and cement backerboard so the shower surround and floor would be ready for new tile. There were a few setbacks, so by the time my dad left Monday evening I had only started tiling the shower. I worked a couple more hours and managed just two rows that first day. The slow start had a reason: the tub wasn’t level.

Using the tub edge as a guide was out of the question. We didn’t want slightly tilted lines that would look off or cause misalignment at corners. With small subway tiles it was also important to avoid ending up with narrow slivers along the tub or ceiling. Instead, that first evening I spent three or four hours trimming the bottoms of the subway tiles on a wet saw to create a single level line to build from. It was tedious but satisfying—exactly the kind of hands-on work I enjoy.

This was my first time tiling, so I’ll share the method I used rather than present it as the only correct approach. Different methods work for different people and projects. I consulted several expert resources while learning and adapted tips that fit our situation.

Tools and Materials

• Wet saw (borrowed)
• Manual tile cutter (shared purchase)
• Buckets of thinset mortar adhesive
• Margin trowel (borrowed)
• Notched trowel (borrowed)
• 1/16″ spacers (subway tile had built-in spacers)
• Tape measure and level
• Pencil and Sharpie for marking cuts
• Paper towels and a water bucket for cleanup

The wet saw and tile cutter became a tag team. The wet saw cuts wet, preventing overheating and dust, and works well for small trims, non-straight notches, and thicker tiles like marble. It’s messy and creates slurry, so I kept it in the bathtub when cutting for the shower and in a drop-clothed hallway for the floor work. The tile cutter is simple and clean but only makes straight cuts and wasn’t powerful enough for the thick marble floor tiles.

Cutting took the most time and required careful measuring and patience. Laying the tiles went much faster once the cuts were done. The key was a consistent, correct amount of thinset: enough to fully bed the tile without squeezing excess into the grout lines. A useful check I learned was to pry up a freshly set tile; its back should be fully coated with thinset. If not, add more.

I did overdo it in spots, which caused thinset to squeeze up between tiles. Removing excess while wet with a finger, paper towel, or toothbrush prevents hours of scraping dried mortar later. I didn’t always clean it in time and ended up chiseling dried thinset out of grout joints—definitely a lesson learned.

Wall Tiling Process

After creating a leveled baseline, the rest of the shower tiling went quickly since most pieces were whole tiles. I completed most of the surround in a couple of five-hour sessions over a week. Two mistakes delayed grouting: aggressive cleanup of dried thinset and a mislabeled grout mix that I accidentally diluted with too much water. Those errors plus a snowstorm put the project temporarily on hold, but we used the break to move on to painting.

We primed the walls with a Valspar drywall primer and chose Benjamin Moore’s Dune Grass as the color reference. Rather than buying Benjamin Moore paint, we took the swatch to Lowe’s and had it color matched into a low-VOC Olympic Premium semi-gloss designed for bathrooms. Painting before the marble floor went in helped reduce worries about paint drips near the new tile.

Floor Preparation and Laying Marble Tile

We finished installing the cement backerboard over the plywood subfloor, using long screws to secure it through the backerboard, through the 3/4″ plywood, and into the diagonal subfloor below for a very solid hold. Mesh tape and thinset mud sealed seams and gaps, and after drying we sanded and cleaned the surface thoroughly to remove dust and cement crumbs.

Layout planning for marble floor tiles was essential. With a small room we wanted full tiles in the most visible areas and avoided awkward slivers near the curved tub and linen closet. We did a dry run with actual 12″ x 12″ tiles and spacers to find the best arrangement that minimized cuts.

Because the floor had a slight slope, we “back buttered” many tiles—spreading thinset on the tile back as well as the floor—to help level and strengthen the installation. A level guided placement, and a simple quarter trick helped double-check levelness: rolling a quarter across two neighboring tiles shows if one edge catches, indicating an uneven setting.

To measure cuts against a wall, I stacked the tile to-be-cut on top of a placed tile, then used a spare tile on top and slid it until it touched the wall. The exposed portion of the middle tile showed exactly what needed to be trimmed. Mark, saw, and set. That method worked reliably for edge tiles.

Laying more than half the floor tiles required wet-sawing and took most of Christmas Eve and a few additional hours afterward. It was a lot of work, but finishing the tiling felt great. The wet saw and I had some good times.

Grouting and sealing the marble floor are the next steps in this tiling adventure. I’ll share those details in a follow-up post, including what worked, what didn’t, and recommendations based on what we learned.

Note: I referenced several expert tutorials and videos while learning to tile. Instructions vary by project, so adapt techniques to what works best for your situation and materials.