I am installing tile in a bathroom, hall, dinining room, and kitchen, and they all connect. Where should I center the tiles?
I would start the tiles along the longest wall to minimize the amount of cutting. I am assuming that you are talking about ceramic tile, but i would do the same with vinyl tiles.
I normally break the areas up and snap chalk lines as if I was going to do each one seperately. Then start adjusting to find the best method of combining them(I have numerous chalk lines of different colors). Then I get real good tiling guys to make me look good. Good Luck
Without seeing the floor plan that is hard. Draw your floor plan out carefully and make a tile grid that matches your drawing scale. If the grid is on tracing or clear acetate sheet you can lay it over your drawing. You want to keep as many straight lines through doors as you can and keep the edges against walls balanced at the same time. You can cheat the layout a little bit by using wider or narower grout line if it is ceramic tile. The fewer places you have less than a half tile against a wall the better it will work. remember that you will have some furniture, so exposed edges after furnishing matter a bit more than edges you will never see behind a couch.
By ALL CONNECT, do you mean any visible straight line of any length through more than one room? Certainly in multiple places you'll have to measure, square the areas and snap two perpendicular lines. Obvious choices in measuring will be issues such as how many full pieces will be most visible, in an aesthetic sense, then tranistion, in full pieces where possible in the room connections. Included in the measuring and snapping lines, you should also consider cuts and trying to create same size pieces where possible at opposing walls. You should consider that in 1/4 grout lines you'll add an inch of tile space on the floor for every 1 ft. of tile,,, be it a 12 inch piece, 16 or 18. So you'd have to do the math, deciding to center a middle tile, or spacing for even wall cuts. I often lay out a course or two and check to perhaps shift my center lines, for the cuts.
