Getting Ready for Tile

The one main obstacle that must be overcome before we lay the tile in the entryway involves humping. Well, de-humping actually. The floor is not level. Here's the deal.

The area we are tiling is 87" x 72". The foundation of the house sits almost in the middle of that area. It's a little closer to the door than the middle. Over a period of 100 years, the house has had time to settle, as you might expect a house to do. The area from the foundation to the front door (approx. 25") has a huge dip...almost an inch and a half.

So here's a series of pictures showing the process of the sub floor going down and then the self leveling compound being forced into self leveling.

So, with the help of my Tile Mentor Ron, we laid a sub floor yesterday and then filled in the dip with mud. It's a self leveling compound that turned out to be very effective. The only thing now is that when you walk in the door, you definitely feel a downward slope as you enter.Above is my mock up of how this all should look when it's finished. The top of the picture is the front door and the bottom transitions to the hardwood floor. The colors still look a little off compared to the real thing but it's a good enough representation to show what we have planned.

Finally, here's a picture showing the results of one of the cats trying to help out.