If you want to get down to brass tacks, not really.  In terms of texture, slate is a highly unique substance.  No doubt you have seen slate up close before and witnessed its multi-layered effect.

As a sedimentary rock, layer upon layer of slate are compacted together to form one cohesive material.

It’s hard to duplicate that layering in ceramic tile.  Even highly textured ceramic or porcelain tile tends to fairly smooth and rounded–rather than sharp and angular like real slate.

So, the best you can hope for is, literally, a tile that looks like slate. Rather than a tile that feels like slate.

DalTile and American Olean are two of the biggest tile companies around.  They also happen to be sister companies, both owned by Mohawk Industries.

DalTile has a line called Continental Slate Colorbody Porcelain.  These are tiles that look relatively close to slate.  Of the eight Continental Slate tiles, one of them looks the most like slate:  Asian Black, CS53.  That’s the product pictured here.

These tiles come in four sizes:  6″x6″, 12″x12″, 12″x18″, and 18″x18″.

Not perfect, but as close to slate as you will get in a ceramic tile version.

I think that once you accept the fact that there will be some cutting and drilling and drywall dust ahead of you, you’ll be okay. But it’s no walk in the park.

There are a number of ways to extend electrical wire along a wall. You can install PVC or metal conduit on the outside of the wall and feed the wire through the conduit. But you won’t be working with friendly ol’ Romex wire. You’ll be dealing with THHN (Thermoplastic High Heat-resistant Nylon) coated wire, which are separate strands of wire. THHN isn’t really all that hard to work with, but it’s unique if you’re accustomed to dealing with Romex.

So, both the conduit method and the in-wall method have major pros and cons. Here, we’re dealing just with retroactively installing electric wire in a closed wall. By “closed,” we mean a wall that already has drywall installed.

1. Find the Studs in the Wall

I rarely use an electronic stud-finder anymore, preferring a magnetic type of stud finder. This stud finder uses super-strong rare earth magnets to find the nails or screws holding the drywall to the studs.

Find studs on either side. They will be most likely 16 inches apart.

2. Mark a Square for Cutting

Here I am using a box top to mark out a square for cutting. The square needs to be big enough for you to fit your cordless drill into. Other than that, any shape or size is fine.

3. Cut Out Hole with Reciprocating Saw

Cut out the square with the reciprocating saw. Here, I am cutting out a door hinged on the left side. I have cut only three size of the square, leaving the left side uncut. You’ll see why I did this later.

4. Use Screwdrivers to Get a Grip on Drywall “Door”

Another type of “door” you can cut is hinged on the bottom. Again, whatever works best for you.

Neatness doesn’t really matter, since you’ll be drywalling over your cuts.

5.  Snap Drywall “Door” Down

With the “hinge on the bottom” version, I simply swing the “door” down until I snap the drywall off.  But be careful not to rip the paper hinge; leave this intact.

6.  Option:  The Hinge on the Side Version

Or, you can hinge the “door” to the side.  Whatever works.  This “snap” was a lot cleaner than the one in the previous step, for some reason or another.

7.   Drill Hole in Stud

Drill a hole for your Romex wire with a 1/2″ or 3/4″ spade bit.

8.  Push Wire Through Stud

Slide the wire through the hole in the stud.

Now, an electrician does this so frequently that he doesn’t even think about it.  But the beginner is often left mystified at how to match the electrical box up with the hole in the drywall.  One thing the beginner may first try is to make some measurements, then cut a hole in the drywall, and then (cross fingers) hope to God that the hole and box match up.  Usually they don’t.

A more predictable way is to ignore hole-to-box placement for the time being.  You lay up the drywall and screw it into place.  Then you have to locate the invisible box and cut out the hole.  While “more predictable,” you still have to find the box–another skill that beginners working with boxes have a hard time with.

Another way to do it is to install an “old work” electrical box in new work drywall.  I can already see an entire nation of electricians cringing…

Positing MDF baseboards against pine baseboards is pretty easy:  MDF blows.  That’s not to say that installing pine baseboards is a piece of cake.  We’re saying that pine will make your life easier than MDF.

One thing that few remodelers mention is that MDF is heavy stuff.  Even though we’re not talking crown molding here, if you’re dealing with MDF crown molding that stuff is heavy to hold up.  But consider this:  hauling home 250 linear feet of MDF is a real job.  And in the process, you’ll end up breaking a board or two and/or nicking the stuff.

In the fight between MDF and pine baseboards, it’s pine all the way.

The reason why crown molding is hard is because: 1.) Crown is expensive. You don’t have a lot of room for error.  F*** up that length of crown molding, split the wood, whatever, and you’re out 35 bucks; 2.) Crown molding takes precision work bordering on woodworker skills more than remodeler skills.

Real crown molding–the hard stuff–requires angle cuts on a miter saw. You have to sometimes flip it around upside-down, and invariably you get the cut wrong. Boom, another dead piece of crown.

So, manufacturers have come up with simple crown molding. Let’s take a look at hard crown molding vs. simple crown molding:

First, cut two parallel lines downward with a rod saw.  A rod saw is a cheap saw, that can either be bought as a blade that fits into your own hacksaw or as a separate saw.  If you’re trying to tile around the tub faucet with tiles no larger than 4″x4″, I recommend the hacksaw.

Next, you need a third line that connects the two previous lines, forming a square that you can knock out.  This can go either of two ways.  You can keep using your rod saw and just cut across.  Or, if you’re tired of sawing, you can score the tile surface with a utility knife or tile cutter.

You need to do some precise measuring to make sure the square you’re cutting out will be covered by the faucet flange.

Deftly knock out that scored piece with a small hammer or handle off a screwdriver.

Fit the tile around the tub faucet hole.

The faucet flange or faucet itself should cover the hole.

Because you’re dealing with such small tiles, you really aren’t cutting the tile itself:  you’re cutting between the tile.  That’s the great thing about mosaic.  So, let’s review your options for cutting mosaic tile, all of the super-simple:

1.  Cut Between Tiles in Mosaic Sheet

This is always the first thing you should try.  Nine times out of ten, you can slice through the fiber backing and get a perfect (or perfect-enough) fit.

How to do this is to turn the mosaic tile sheet upside-down, and cut through the backing with a utility knife.

2.  Cut Individual Mosaic Tiles with Nipper

If you just have a couple of individual tiles within the mosaic sheet to cut, then snap them apart with a tile nipper (or nibbler).

If you have to cut a sheet of mosaic diagonally, your only option is to use the snap cutter.  Cutting the tiles apart (#1) will not work.

3.  Cut a Row of Mosaic Tiles with a Snap Cuttter

Cut a line of mosaic tile by setting the sheet in your snap cutter.  The tiles will wiggle around a bit and protest, but with a steady hand you can position them and snap them apart.

Because, if you didn’t know this already, caulking is a strangely archaic and inefficient process.  You squirt the caulk bead where you want it and then…

…Then you dab your finger in water and you smooth the caulk down.  Or you can use little plastic scrapers that are supposed to do the same thing.  But in the end, it’s more efficient just to use your finger.  Messy!

So, a suggested “cleaner” way to do this is to lay down two strips of masking tape, one on either side of the intended caulk bead.  The idea behind this is that when you smooth down the caulk with your finger, the caulk gets smooshed out in direction you didn’t want it to go.  But by having this masking tape, you can later on strip the tape away and the mess with it.

How well does this work?

It’s certainly worth trying out.  Not all tilers–professional or DIY–use masking tape.

For one thing, it takes a lot of time to lay down the masking tape precisely.  Pros with steady hands can caulk cleanly without the tape, and save time.

Also, it’s too easy to rely on the tape to do the job.  The tape is just clean-up help.

Us DIY tilers often have “eyes” bigger than our “hands.”  The opposite scenario is laying down just a little bit of mastic, laying down 2 or 3 tiles, laying down more mastic, and doing this over and over.  It gets tiring.  That’s the point where most of us start increasing the amount of mastic.

You will know if the mastic is too dry to install tile when it has “skinned over.”  Skinning over means that the very top of the mastic has develope a thin, dry layer.  To the touch, it may not feel like much.  In fact, you can even break through it with your fingernail.

But don’t do this.  Even that thin skin is enough to prevent your tiles from sticking properly.

Don’t throw skinned-over mastic back in your bucket of mastic, or you’ll ruin the stuff in the bucket.

Carefully scrape off any “skinned over” mastic from the wall and dispose of it.

Then reapply mastic to your wall–less mastic this time around, of course–and start tiling again.

Frankly, there is no magic bullet.  It just takes a few tips and a little patience, and you’ll get it right.

Use Bullnose on One Side, Flat on Other

On one side of the corner, you will use bullnose edged tile.  On the adjacent side, you will use tile with a flat edge (i.e., non-bullnose).

This is the only want to make sure that when the two tiles meet, they will form a smooth corner.

Trim Off the Bullnose

So, where do you get the “flat tile” mentioned above?  You can either buy tile without the bullnose, or you can use your wet tile saw to trim off just the bullnose part of some tiles.  Do not go too far; just the bullnose.  And don’t worry, you won’t notice the smaller dimensions if you’re judicious about trimming off only the bullnose.

Don’t worry about any special skills needed to trim the bullnose off.  This is an extremely simple cut to do with a wet tile saw.

Bullnose Overlaps Flat-Edged Tile

Now, make sure that the bullnose overlaps the flat-edged tile.  The bullnose is the “show” part of the tile.  The cut-off flat time may have some minor ridges, but this will be covered up by the bullnose.

Tile Both Sides of Corner Simultaneously

Ah, now here’s a great tip.  Do not tile an entire column of bullnoses upward, stop, and then tile the flat-edged tiles upward.

Instead, do a bullnose and its around-the-corner neighbor.  Then the next one up.  Then the next one, and so on.

Stacked Tile Design, Not Overlapping Design

Now, this is no requirement, but it’s a helpful thing–unless you’re really confident about your tiling skills, you will find that the stacked tile design is much easier than the overlapping tile design when working with corners.

Note that by “overlapping” we’re not talking about bullnose overlapping the flat-edged tiles in the tip above.  This is an entirely different thing, where you lay the tiles out in a grid fashion:

Stacked Tile

Overlapping Tile