We know a few things about layering in the Bay Area, as the weather can easily change more than 30 degrees in a day and go from rainy to sunny in a few hours. Layering for our bathroom floor has a slightly different concept. You saw the orange underlay in the previous post - a waffle-like material which will provide a good base for large, heavy tiles. 
On top of that we put the radiant floor mat. You can see the electrical wires snaking through the green mesh of the mat. We want the mat to cover everywhere you might stand in the bathroom, so it doesn't have to go behind the toilet or too far under the sink, for instance. The wires in the mat run up to the control box, which will be located next to other switches, such as for the lights or skylight, and allow us to program when the floor is on and off. That way, I can have it nice and toasty warm in the cool mornings for my poor, low-circulation toes.
On top of the heating mat, finally, goes the tile. For the floor we decided to stay with the 18x18 tile instead of cutting them in half to be 9x18, as we did for the shower walls. Everything is held
together with thinset. There's an old carpenter saying that goes like this: You have to lay one tile at a time. Well, that could not be truer in our case. The reasons for laying one at a time, of course, are that each tile placement depends on the tiles before it. This is especially true when working in the vertical dimension. It is also true in our small work space, that only one of us can work in there at a time. And even that was getting difficult as we tiled further back into the water closet, leaving very little space to stand.
On top of that we put the radiant floor mat. You can see the electrical wires snaking through the green mesh of the mat. We want the mat to cover everywhere you might stand in the bathroom, so it doesn't have to go behind the toilet or too far under the sink, for instance. The wires in the mat run up to the control box, which will be located next to other switches, such as for the lights or skylight, and allow us to program when the floor is on and off. That way, I can have it nice and toasty warm in the cool mornings for my poor, low-circulation toes.On top of the heating mat, finally, goes the tile. For the floor we decided to stay with the 18x18 tile instead of cutting them in half to be 9x18, as we did for the shower walls. Everything is held
together with thinset. There's an old carpenter saying that goes like this: You have to lay one tile at a time. Well, that could not be truer in our case. The reasons for laying one at a time, of course, are that each tile placement depends on the tiles before it. This is especially true when working in the vertical dimension. It is also true in our small work space, that only one of us can work in there at a time. And even that was getting difficult as we tiled further back into the water closet, leaving very little space to stand.
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