Finish Walls Or Tile Floor First

A gutted room eliminates much of the dirt and grime associated with removing old carpet tile or wood flooring.

Finish walls or tile floor first.

Floor finishing is semi permanent. The floor will have a certain look whether glossy or semi glossy or a certain hue and the look of the walls should follow from there. Walls first floors last if anything its because walls tend to have white or lighter grouts than floors so if you do the floor first and grout with grey when you do the walls you will inevitably drop grout onto your lovely floor and cause light patches to your grout also you might drop a tile onto your floor and chip something get your walls out of the way all shining and clean and then do. Finishing my full concrete basement.

From there you should rip up the floors. What you really want to do is tile the walls starting with the second row and work up from there. Meanwhile install your floor tiles to the wall. The general construction rule is to work from the top of the room downward.

Opt for floor installation first because it s often a messy process. People i have spoken to tell me to build the walls first then the subfloor. And then finish by installing that final row of wall tiles so that it overlaps the floor properly. The first row near the floor should be reserved using a ledger or other space saver.

The ideal is to first do any prep work to the walls e g ripping up wall paper sanding and patching walls etc. If you do the walls first starting from a straight edge by the time you get to the top you can generally take the straight edges off and finish the wall and floor tile in the same day. Also it s often better to paint the ceilings first especially given that the ladders will rest on the floors. Stained flooring retains its color for a long time and it s difficult to sand it all out.

It seems to me that it would be much easier to lay down the entire subfloor and then place framed 2x4 walls on top of the floor there would be just as much work building the walls but considerably less work putting the floor. Construction s a messy job and if you install the flooring first you ll spend more time on the walls because you ll have to be more careful not to drip joint compound on a new floor. If time is of the essence it s quicker to hang the drywall and tape out the walls first.