How to Build a Tile Countertop 1200 Miles Away
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Hey, this kitchen looks nice! The cabinet color is attractive and the appliances are pretty slick.
On second glance something seems off… Is that a ladder in the background?
Wait! This kitchen is in a garage?!?! WHY?!?
This is the kitchen we were preparing to install in the rental remodel 1200 miles away. 1200 miles when you have a full time career means lots of weekend warrior trips. Southwest Airlines loves me. And they loved me even more the longer the remodel dragged on.
I’m not going to lie here: long distance sucks. I did not want or need any more airline points than necessary… or lack of sleep from stressing over what did not get done during the last trip… or stressing about how many more trips are needed.
One solution?
Do as much as possible ahead of time!
Building granite tile countertops for the bathroom and kitchen is one of the projects we successfully completed ahead of time. Prebuilding the granite tile countertops is a HUGE time savings. ANYTHING plug and play is the way to go!
Logistics
Since we lived 1,200 miles away from the kitchen, the countertop needed to be durable enough to survive the trip. An entire L-shape might not be strong enough to last all the bumps and continuous low grade vibrations in the trailer. So I decided to divide the countertop into two pieces. Likewise, any overhangs and edges needed to be well thought out before installing them on the countertop prior to the long journey.
Time savings (time and $$$ NOT on-site):
Three weekends of building in my boyfriend’s garage. Translation: a savings of two three day weekends on the remote job site. Two round trip plane tickets.
To be fair in this time measurement, we started by doing the bathroom countertop first.
BEGINNER TIP: start your learning curve by experimenting with the countertop with less visibility. Perhaps you use your bathroom more than your kitchen because you don’t cook. Even in this case, your friends and family will gather in your kitchen (you’ve done something wrong if they gather in your bathroom).
So rather than doing all three countertops at the same time, which would have been faster, we cut our teeth on the bathroom countertop. We learned as much as we could on the easier and simpler countertop. Then we proceeded to the kitchen counters.
I am going to take the steps from the last post and rewrite them here for the modified process if you are prebuilding tile countertops instead of the ideal way of building in place.
1. Install the cabinets.
Nope. But we did the next best thing: we set up an entire mock kitchen.
At the time, Home Depot did not carry the dark stain cabinets I wanted on the shelf in the remote city. Rather than worry about placing a special order for the cabinetry I wanted, I bought them ahead of time. We then brought them cross-country with us so we would have them on hand.
BONUS TIP: we could also check out their condition RIGHT NOW. A special order scratched cabinet could not put a stop on installing the kitchen cabinets and then waiting for a replacement to leisurely come in.
2. Measure off the final countertop measurements.
Buying the cabinets ahead of time also had the added bonus of us being able to line up all the cabinets and get an almost exact measurement of the kitchen. There were some assumptions with this setup as well. The first assumption was to expect the kitchen to not be square. So any measurements we took would have to have some fudge factor in them.
We sort of lucked out with regards to being able to pinpoint the measurement based on my design of the new layout. When it came to the L-shape section one end ended up with the refrigerator and the other end stopped at the oven. The countertop on the other side of the oven was cut down on-site since that section was the filler (wiggle room #1). The refrigerator can move a little (wiggle room #2).
Step 8 explains the fudge factor in the front to back measurement.
3. Determine the thickness of the plywood base
The minimum recommendation of ¾” is not going to cut it. Why? Durability. As you recall, the countertop needs to survive the long trip. The main area of concern is the kitchen sink since it was pre-cut and the definite weak spot. Final answer: ¾” plywood overlapped with ½” plywood.
4. Measure off the plywood board(s) and cut it to size.
We could not overlap the plywood boards fully in the corner, which is ideal if you have on-site access. Instead, we devised a tongue and groove joint where the second layer of plywood on one piece slides in between the first layer of plywood and the third layer of cement board. Once in place the pieces could be glued and screwed together.
5. Measure off the cement board and cut it to size.
This is the same as the plywood step. Consider your breakpoints and how to join them on-site.
6. Wipe off the cement board.
Definitely.
7. Mortar and screw the cement board to the plywood.
Do this too. You will not be able to tape and mortar the joint between boards until you are on-site, but the rest is applicable.
8. Determine how you want to affix the front vertical tiles.
I chose to overhang the top tiles, so this is one of the edges requiring VERY, VERY CAREFUL packaging for the long trip. This choice also determined I had about an inch of uncovered cement board in the back of the countertop. I could have put the sliver of granite tile in there already. However, recall the lesson where you do not know if the walls really are square. If I had any problems at all I was giving myself up to an inch of fudge factor on the backside of all the countertops. I could easily cut off a sliver or a chunk if needed and also match the granite to the same wonky shape. The 3/8″ thick backsplash would also help cover any inconsistencies.
In the last post I explained how I intentionally make the front granite tiles longer than the thickness of the countertop so they extend down a little further than the rest of the surface. While moving–both in the trailer or getting bumped the wrong way from the trailer to the kitchen–this is just asking for them to break off. I decided against attaching the front granite tiles. I still fabricated the tiles, but I left the installation for on-site after the counters were attached to the cabinets.
9. Dry fit the tiles.
Yes!
10. Fabricate all finished edges of the tiles
10a. Bullnose the front top edge of the counter.
10b. If your tile comes with a 45 degree beveled edge fabricate a beveled edge on all sides of every tile.
Do all of this even though you may not attach the tiles until you are on-site.
11. Mortar the horizontal tiles in place.
Affix all tiles except the ones around any joint where two separate countertops meet. Delay attaching these tiles until you are on-site. Joints on a continuous surface are fine to tile.
The arrows indicate where four tiles will cover the joint between the two parts of the countertop. Also notice the vertical front edge tiles are not attached yet.
12. Let the mortar set
Done! Definitely the easiest step since you are doing this in preparation for a trip. Unless you are leaving that same night…
13. Mortar the vertical front edge tiles in place
No. Not until you are on-site, or have better packaging skills and faith in nothing moving while in transit. It was not worth the risk to me.
14. Apply grout.
This step is also put on hold since all of the tiles are not in place yet.
15. Seal the grout.
Same as the previous step…on hold.
16. Enjoy and host a gathering to celebrate!
Enjoy=happy dance of relief.
Host a gathering=show your curious neighbors what the heck is going on in the garage.
Last tips and remarks to build a tile countertop remotely
Since we are obviously not done at this point there are two last steps for the long distance project: packaging and placement! Consider any and all weak points. In our example above, the sink area needs careful packaging for the long haul. Second, the trailer is filled with a literal ton of cabinets, tools, tile and the kitchen sink. Placing the heavy countertop along with protecting the edge of overhanging top tile is a huge deal! I recall there was some prayer added in for good measure.
Keep in mind my example of living 1200 miles away from the job site IS EXTREME. Let’s say you are helping a friend with their bathroom and you do not want to lug all your tools to their house. Or perhaps it is 110 degrees outside and you want to build the countertop in the comfort of your back porch where you have a misting system. Another likely scenario is you only have a small window to get a job done.
How often do you get a chance to finish something before you get keys to your house or job site? When you build a tile countertop before your project starts, it is a large job already off your checklist. Having a large job complete ahead of time and quietly waiting in the corner is an ace in the hole.
