Where to start a tile floor

Start where people look first. Then shift the whole layout so no edge ends in a thin sliver. That's the answer for most floors.

If you'd rather see it on your own room than read about it, put the room and the tile in the free layout planner. It shows every layout ranked, where to start, and how many tiles to buy. Here's the thinking behind it.

Pick the edge people see first

Full tiles go where the eye lands. Cut pieces go where nobody looks. So the first question isn't "center or wall?" It's "what does everyone see when they walk in?"

In most rooms, it's one of these:

• The shower or tub. In a bathroom, the tub apron or the shower curb is a long straight line right in front of you. Full tiles along it look clean. A sliver along it looks like a mistake.
• The main doorway. In a kitchen, laundry or hallway, the door is where people stand and look down. Full tiles at the threshold.
• The far wall. In a room you see from the door, the far wall is what you look at. Full tiles there, cuts at the door end, often hidden under a threshold.

Pick one. That's your start edge. Everything else is about what happens at the other side.

Check both walls for slivers

Here's the problem. A room is almost never an exact number of tiles wide.

Start with a full tile at one wall, and whatever's left over ends up at the opposite wall. Sometimes that's a nice half tile. Sometimes it's a 1 inch strip that cracks when you cut it and looks wrong forever.

Before you set anything, do the math across the room both ways:

1. Measure wall to wall.
2. Divide by the tile size plus one grout joint.
3. Look at what's left over. That's the width of your last row.

If the last row is tiny, shift the grid. Move the start line over by half a tile, and the leftover splits between both walls. Now you have two medium cuts instead of one full row and one sliver.

A common rule of thumb: no edge piece smaller than half a tile where it shows. The planner is a little looser: it flags any visible piece under a third of the tile, or under 6 inches on big tile, as a sliver.

Do this in both directions. A floor can be perfect left to right and end in a sliver at the door.

Use the tile's real size, not the label

A "24 x 48" tile usually isn't 24 x 48. It's often 23 5/8 x 47 1/4.

That's 3/8 in. short per tile. Five of them across a 10 foot room come up almost 2 inches short of the label math, and that can move your last cut from fine to a sliver.

Measure an actual tile from the box before you do the math. Measure a few, since they can vary. The planner asks for the real size for this reason.

The same goes for the grout joint. A 1/16 in. joint and a 1/4 in. joint change the count across a big room.

Cabinets and vanities: tile under or around?

If the cabinets aren't in yet, you have a choice.

Tile under them. More tile and more labor, but the floor is continuous. If the cabinets ever change, the floor is already there. It also keeps the cabinet at the same height as the finished floor, which matters for a dishwasher.

Tile around them. Less tile, and the cut pieces hide under the toe kick. But you're locked into that footprint.

Either way, the cabinet edge changes where cuts land.

If tile goes under, the cabinet hides the cuts along that wall, so you can put the sliver there on purpose. The planner has a box for "tile runs under the cabinets" and shows the hidden part on the plan.

Large-format and plank tile: offsets and lippage

Long tiles aren't perfectly flat. They bow slightly in the middle. If you offset them by half, the high middle of one tile sits next to the low end of the next, and you get lippage: edges you can feel with your foot.

That's why the maker may limit how far you can offset long tile. Check the box or the maker's installation sheet for your tile before you pick an offset.

Large-format tile also needs a flat floor. A leveling system helps on the set, but it can't fix a floor with a dip in it. Check flatness before you start.

How much tile to buy

Measure the floor area, add extra for cuts and breakage, then round up to whole boxes.

How much extra depends on the pattern. A straight lay in a simple room wastes the least. Diagonal and herringbone waste more, because every edge piece is an angled cut. Small rooms with lots of corners waste more than big open ones.

Then:

• Round up to whole boxes. You can't buy part of a box.
• Buy from the same lot. Color can shift between production runs. Check the lot number on each box.
• Keep a few spares. If a tile cracks in five years, you'll want the same one. A discontinued tile can't be matched.

The planner counts tiles with 10% added for breakage and turns it into boxes if you enter how many come in a box. For a diagonal or herringbone pattern, buy more than that.

Try it on your room

The free layout planner does all of the above for a rectangular room:

• Put in the room size, the door, any cabinet run, and the tile size and joint.
• Pick your start edge: the shower or tub, the main doorway, or the far wall.
• It shows every layout ranked, flags slivers, and says where to start.
• You get the tile count with 10% for breakage, the boxes, and a cut sheet: one saw setting per cut, so you make a few trips to the saw instead of thirty.

It runs in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask for the plan by email.

It's a planning aid. Measure the real room, check it for square, and verify every dimension on site before you cut.

Want a second set of eyes?

On the planner, you can send your floor plan or photos and have a tile setter check your plan. It's free, and they usually write back within a day.

There's also an option to get bids from tile pros near you. That's coming, and it's labeled that way on the planner. The homeowner side of BidWell is coming too; see BidWell for homeowners.

Try the free layout planner.

Running tile jobs? BidWell runs the job for contractors: measure, estimate, proposal, invoices and the Texas paperwork.

It's invite-only until launch. Request early access. When we invite you, the first 14 days are free, no card. See how it works for contractors, or our guide to pricing a tile job.