As long as you have 16" or less separated wall studs you should be fine. When the studs are further apart there is less holding power on just the sheet rock or dry wall. Greg

Thanks for your responses. :) It's a gypcrete floor underlayment. When you say not to mix the two together, do you mean not to mix together dry and then with water in same batch? Sorry, I didn't intend to say that, if that was what it sounded like I was asking. By "mix and match", I meant would it be alright to do one section of floor with one mortar. And then when I run out of that one, can I finish off the floor with the other mortar? I mainly had my doubts about using the Marble/Granite mortar for my glazed ceramic tile, but the Custom Products website said that it was fine for ceramic tiles, and particularly good for ones larger than 12 x 12". The tiles we're laying are 16 x 16". Out of curiosity, what does "medium bed" mean? Have a good evening and thanks again.

The 'does big tile make a room look bigger?' question has been asked a lot as more and more large format tiles hit the market-- new tech is making larger formats more cost effective, and within a couple years the big question for countertops is going to be granite vs. porcelain slabs. Current thinking is that big tile makes rooms seem bigger. It's not wrong, but its short sighted. Right now, big is a novelty that attracts attention, slows down the eye. But as tile goes from big to HUGE this impact is going to go away, plus I think we are already getting used to it. When the novely fades, small rooms with big tile will look even smaller. I think stretching or shrinking a space depends completely on the relationship between pattern, tile and grout; as well as the density of detail in the tile. A highly detailed floor, whether it comes from contrasting grout, a complex pattern, or a tile with a lot happening-- tends to slow down the eye down when it travels accross the floor, literally serving as 'visual brakes'. A very plain floor-- which can be acheived by matching the grout closely to a small tile, as well as using a larger format and a simple pattern-- gives your attention nothing to cling to, so it slides right across to whatever is on the other side. A tile medallion or 'rug' work as brakes, too, but in a very small room it's important that the scale be right to keep the design from feeling crowded. IE: a narrow listello that attracts attention without consuming too much floor space. To make a room seem larger, avoid a plain grid, avoid a plain tile, and have some contrast between tile and grout. I personally think 13x13s are a poor choice, since people will assume they are 12x, and count your floorspace accordingly. My kitchen ended up long and narrow. It's going to work great because it gives me separate cooking and cleanup zones, but I wanted to use a pattern that wouldn't emphasize the proportions. I went with a herringbone pattern of 12x18s with a couple medallions in key areas to work as visual punctuation. A border would have been counter productive because it would have 'squeezed' the short axis of the room. Seems to work great: the larger format keeps the pattern from being too busy, while the pattern keeps the eye from skidding right accross the short axis the way it would with a plain grid. The arrows formed by a herringbone pattern pull the eye off in different directions, rather than encouraging straight lines, too. In one of the master bath suites, we used an off the shelf 12x mosaic trav from Lowes: while the pattern is good, the fact that its a non-interlocking 12x still gives you straight grout lines from one side of the room to the other. So we 'pinwheeled' the 12xs with pretty blue porcleain 2x accents and punched out a few random 4xs from the mosaics, replaced them with a porcelain that matches perfectly color wise, but features a pattern pressed into the surface. Gives a lot of visual breaks, and some interesting detail that you only notice on closer inspection. Makes the room seem much larger.

What is your CTI#? I know that there are several forum participants that have that accolade. I suspect Corrector knows several as well, that could chime in, since he is always on the money when attempting to set straight hack work practices. That is the whole purpose of the designation, and the handbook. It sets apart those who can do it correctly, and those who cannot. Bettering the industry by eliminating the hacks who do not follow industry standards is a very worthy goal. People do have the opportunity to learn and better their practices and their businesses, if they just make the effort. There's plenty of opportunity everywhere. Every single Schluter rep for instance used to set tile. They have no problem working along side you on a project to learn their system if you can't attend one of their many hands on classes. Schluter isn't the only company willing to help better skills. They can't create someone who wants to learn though. It's the ones who rest on imaginary accolades and who refuse to learn or adapt that won't make it.