Tiling and splashbacks

A splashback is the best place to learn to tile. It is small, it is at eye level, it is usually bounded on at least two sides by something straight, and if it goes badly the cost of taking it off and starting again is measured in an afternoon rather than a fortnight.

Everything in this strand comes back to setting out. Tiles are unforgiving of a run that starts slightly wrong, because the error does not stay where you made it. It multiplies along the row and arrives at the far wall as a wedge of grout that nobody can look away from.

The guides here assume a flat, sound, clean surface and a straight-edged tile. Curved walls, old lath and plaster and tiles that have to run around a window are their own subject, and the honest answer is that they take more setting out, not less.