One Room Challenge: Week 5 – Tiling Without Thin-set Mortar

This week’s One Room Challenge update is a quick one. I’ve started tiling, and I’m already loving the look!

Last fall, when I built the tile coffee table for our porch, I discovered SimpleMat, and fell in love with it! I had my doubts. Could this really replace traditional thin-set mortar? Surely this peel-and-stick adhesive wouldn’t be strong enough to hold the tile in place. But to my surprise, it worked beautifully! So I decided to use it again, this time on the powder room walls because it’s so easy and convenient. There’s absolutely no mess involved! It’s more expensive than even the premixed thin-set mortars, but it’s much easier to work with and for a smaller-sized tile project like this one, I think the extra $ is worthwhile.

It’s very beginner-friendly! And it comes with detailed instructions for a variety of tile applications. It’s basically like double-sided tape. One side sticks to the wall and the other holds the tile in place. The only somewhat tricky part of using SimpleMat as a opposed to traditional thin-set mortar is that there is no wiggle room. You have to lay the tiles exactly where you want them from the start unlike with mortar where you can move and adjust the tiles until it’s dry. But it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. I’ve found that using two different sized levels helps to make you sure you set the tiles exactly where you want them.

One wall done! Two and a quarter to go. Now I just need to decide – white grout or black? Thoughts?

Be sure to check out what all of the other One Room Challenge participants are up to this week! Just three more weeks to go! Yikes!