prepairing wall for tiling

I'm a girl in a mans world, so this may be a silly question?
I have removed the tiles from my kitchen wall to discover old bricks
in one section and badly laid board in another.
The brick and board walls are not smooth as something like liquid nails was used to stick up the tiles and has pulled chunks from the board and brick.
How do I smooth the area before tiling?
Will the tiler do this for me or will he expect it to be flat?
What is this "skim coating"?
I thought I read not to use plaster as the tile adhesive won't stick but to use cornice cement instead?
Please take pity on me, any help is great!

welcome to the forum.

If the area is not too large and relatively flat then the area can be built up with tile adhesive.

Great to see the Girls getting involved, don't rush anything and don't be afraid to ask questions. As Emptybucketman says you can level it with tile adhesive....don't try to do it all at once, fill in the bigger holes and gaps first making sure any filled bits remain lower than the surrounding area, with each successive coat filling in more. On the 2nd or 3rd coat this should be a reasonable finish to tile on. Good luck, Ron

dont use plaster or cornice cement to repair the damage as both of these soften up with moisture, (which the tile adhesive will have plenty of) .. the tiler would expect it to be flat. and if it is not then you should let the tiler know prior to him showing up so he can be ready to prepare the area. this will ofcourse cost you extra.

if you want to smooth the area out yourself you can use tile adhesive or render over the brick and frbrous cement sheeting over the boarded area.


keep in mind that cement based tile adhesives dont adhere to fibrous cement sheeting..and most adhesives tend to slump and shrink as they dry.


alternatively you could use fibrous cement sheeting over the complete area to tile and use cornice cement to stick the sheet to the substrate and once the cornice cement has set then you could pin it to the wall with some tacks

tile cement works a treat. we had some gappy joins between new plaster and the old sisal or horse hair plaster and they came up a treat with no work at all. Let the tile do the work for you!