[dtbingle]

Was mocking up my first row of tile above the bathtub and noticed that the transition from the cement board to drywall was uneven. Holding up a subway tile and bullnose termination piece, it would leave quite a large gap on the outward edge of the bullnose tile (eyeballing the gap around 1/8" to 3/16").

What would be the best solution to fix my mistake?

 

[Windows on Wash]

Back butter the tiles and run them a bit thicker there so they line up. Once everything is cured, you grout that line back or better yet, use a flexible sealant and paint it the wall color with a hard tape line at the tile.

 

[dtbingle]

Back butter the tiles and run them a bit thicker there so they line up. Once everything is cured, you grout that line back or better yet, use a flexible sealant and paint it the wall color with a hard tape line at the tile.

I'm not 100% sure I follow. Are you saying to lay the tiles with the normal amount of thinset, but then add additional thinset under the bullnose pieces to sit flush with the rest of the wall tile?

I was a bit unclear on the entire picture of what's going on. Here's an exaggerated view:

The bottom 20" or so of the drywall part is pushed in a little bit. When hanging the drywall, I noticed this, but thought the difference was small enough to not make a difference after adding thinset and laying the tile.

Even if I monkey around with the thinset thickness and get the tiles all flush with and even gap at the bullnose tiles, it will still be a fairly large gap up to the window. Will just caulking and painting wall color up to the tile look okay with this size gap?

 

[huesmann]

Depends whether or not you care if your bullnose is parallel to your subway. You could always just give the bullnose a slight angle so its edge is closer to the drywall.

Or maybe you could just skim coat the offending section of drywall.

 

[dtbingle]

Depends whether or not you care if your bullnose is parallel to your subway. You could always just give the bullnose a slight angle so its edge is closer to the drywall.

Or maybe you could just skim coat the offending section of drywall.

This was option (1) I was thinking - to just slightly angle the bullnose pieces on the offending section.

Trying to avoid skim coating and any repaint since I just finished painting haha.

My option (2) was to maybe cut out the section of cement board adjacent to the offending drywall section, chisel back the framing to allow the cement board to angle back and sit flush with the drywall, then reapply tape+thinset+redgard.

 

[huesmann]

Seems like more work than a skim and repaint.

 

[Nealtw]

This was option (1) I was thinking - to just slightly angle the bullnose pieces on the offending section.

Trying to avoid skim coating and any repaint since I just finished painting haha.

My option (2) was to maybe cut out the section of cement board adjacent to the offending drywall section, chisel back the framing to allow the cement board to angle back and sit flush with the drywall, then reapply tape+thinset+redgard.

Just feather it out and re paint, if you cut a hole and mess with it you still have to paint it.

 

[dtbingle]

Just feather it out and re paint, if you cut a hole and mess with it you still have to paint it.

Not necessarily, if the cement board part is cut out and kicked in a little to match the drywall, it can then be retaped and mudded with thinset. But then tile would go over this seam and cover any tear out work of the cement board and any exposed painted drywall wouldn't be touched.

Another thought was to cut and peel back the redgard membrane on that section and sand the thinset joint down. Based on the thinset joint thickness, I might be able to reduce the cement board side of the joint down to cut the gap in half and then VERY slightly tilt the bullnose finish towards the wall to match the gap of the bullnose tile above it.

 

[Nealtw]

Not necessarily, if the cement board part is cut out and kicked in a little to match the drywall, it can then be retaped and mudded with thinset. But then tile would go over this seam and cover any tear out work of the cement board and any exposed painted drywall wouldn't be touched.

Another thought was to cut and peel back the redgard membrane on that section and sand the thinset joint down. Based on the thinset joint thickness, I might be able to reduce the cement board side of the joint down to cut the gap in half and then VERY slightly tilt the bullnose finish towards the wall to match the gap of the bullnose tile above it.

You would like a flat surface, have you a straight edge like a 4 ft level that you can lay across and see of something is proud or dipped.
If it was the same from top to bottom you could maybe work something out with an edging just to hide the extra mortar.

 

[Nealtw]

Maybe you could use a pencil trim instead of the bullnose.

 

[dtbingle]

Good idea. Checked the wall over for high & low spots. Ended up cutting out and peeling the redgard membrane off of this seam. Then used a rubbing stone to sand down the cement board side of the seam because the cement board stuck out farther into the room then the pushed back adjacent drywall. This cut the large gap roughly in half. Not perfect, but I think it's workable to caulk and maybe use wall paint to disguise a portion of the gap.