# Forum Home Renovation Tiling  Hiding a large gap between benchtop and wall?

## cossie

Hi all, 
Having removed a wall and extended my kitchen across what was once two rooms, I'm now left with a very out of square wall behind the benchtop. 
I know the right thing to do would have been to remove the old plasterboard, re-stud the wall and put new plasterboard up before installing the kitchen, but for several reasons that wasn't practical. Benchtop couldn't be scribed in either. 
The gap is 22mm at it's largest point under the plug socket in the photo. 
The tiles I have are 6.5mm thick 100x100mm. 
I was thinking of 6mm cement sheet between the 2 window frames (you can just see the 2nd window at the end of the photo). This would mean the tiles just finish flush with the timber window frames. 
I'd need to pack the cement sheet away from the wall in the centre of it - what's best to use? either those packing strips or plasterboard adhesive maybe? 
Do I skim the wall with base coat so the cement sheet is hard against the wall? would need to be a good 10mm at the thickest point, is this too much? 
Either way I will have to angle the bottom row of tiles out slightly at the bottom edge to cover the gap otherwise the tiles will be proud of the window frames. 
I was hoping to put the most of the tiles straight onto the old plasterboard except for this run, but a lot of people are saying not to tile straight onto plasterboard. Maybe I could use a thinner cement sheet for the majority and just use 6mm under this area?  
Totally lost here so any advice would help!

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## Cecile

I'm surprised your kitchen guy didn't check the square of the benchtop against the wall before he installed it. 
With regard to tiling, I'm not a tiler but I would NOT recommend you tile straight onto plasterboard, ever.

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## r3nov8or

I'm glad you haven't suggested a big piece of quad or other moulding to cover the gap after you've tiled. Not a good look in a kitchen IMHO. 
Probably the easiest way would be use shims of the required thickness at each stud and cement sheet over between the windows. I would tile to at least a tall persons eye level otherwise you'll be looking down on the difference forever.  
If the plaster board is in very good order I would be happy to tile over it, but best if it is new or has not been painted before. You'll have some cement sheet offcuts so use them under the window.  
I would not angle the first tile at bench level - this is annoy you forever. Something has to give, and I think it is the window depth. I would take off the whole window architrave and pack it out as far as necessary so the arch will be just proud of the tiles. You'd be best to pack it out with timber the same type and width as the widest part of the arch, so that above the tile level you have a flat surface that just looks like a deep architrave. If you want to retain the look of the archs being stepped in a few mm, the packer will need to be that few mm broader than your arch. 
Interested, though, in why the benchtop could not be made deeper and scribed to the wall? 
Edit: This may be further complicated by how and where the benchtop ends in relation to other features along the wall, but we can't see that...

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## cossie

I did the entire kitchen myself and knew there would be a small gap but it wasn't until all cabinets were lined up and positioned in place until it was clear how big it was. 
The benchtop isn't deep enough to make it worthwhile trying to scribe in and the overhang over the front of the cabinets would have been reduced too much. plus it's also an L-shaped kitchen and it would have thrown the other benchtop out. I was originally going to get the benchtops professionally supplied and installed but it was much cheaper to get them standard depth with the flat-packed kitchen already mitred and cut.
I was also limited for time as we were already without a kitchen for a week and have 2 small kids. (plus I didn't want to cut any more laminate than I had to for fear of chipping it).  
I've established that the architraves are 12mm, I should be able to get 19mm replacements? this will give me more room to play with depth without having to angle tiles or having tiles sitting proud of the timber. 
So it's ok if the cement sheet is shimmed at the studs? It won't flex or and affect the tiles if not flat against the gyprock?

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## r3nov8or

Yeah, great, if you can achieve the result (depth) with thicker architraves, all good. Plenty of ways to skin a cat. 
Re  the cement sheet, you mention 6mm and this would be fine straight over studs, so shimmed studs aren't really any different.

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## jatt

Had to do a heap of packing out where the new and old joined up on my reno, at times using 16 mm rondos. 
Dont recon u can go too far wrong if u pack on studs, thats what your wall linings attach to.

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## Godzilla73

G'day, 
It's a question of how far you want to go to hide the woof in the wall, obviously the wall isn't straight, a long straight edge across the length will tell you how much too pack it out at say 450mm intervals to get it straight and so the finished tiles sit on the benchtop by about 5mm, then i'd sheet with cement sheet for the tiles. 
As you've said this leads to a prob with the window, if you're going to replace the archs you can cut the nails holding the window in, and with a bit of effort the window can be moved inwards to sit flush with at least some if not all of the new cement sheet. Remembering to fix off the window. Again it depends on how much it'll annoy you when you look at it making a coffee in the morning as to how far you go. 
I've done this a few times, moving the window both in and out depending on wall lining thickness.

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## chrisp

How are you intending to finish the window reveals and architraves (paint, stain)? 
If you are going to paint then, then a relatively easy fix is to:   Remove the architraves.Pack/level the wall as per the suggesting provided by others above.Reline the wall with fibre cement sheet fro the tiled area.Cut strips of timber to extend the window _reveal_ to match the new wall level.Reinstall the architraves (to the extended/packed reveals).Tile/finish.  
If you are going to paint the reveals, you could use any timber to extend/pack the reveal.  If you are going to stain/varnish them, then you can still do the above but you'd need to match the timber for colour/species.

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