How to Lay Tile Herringbone

Start at the center of the room, not a wall. Every herringbone job that goes sideways on us traces back to someone starting at a fixed edge instead of a chalked centerline, because a room is never perfectly square and the pattern shows every inch of that drift by the far wall. Get the center line right, dry-fit the field before any thinset touches the floor, and the rest of the job is patience with a wet saw.

Is Herringbone Tiling Difficult?

Yes, more than a straight grid, less than the reputation suggests. The zigzag itself is simple math, tiles set at 45 or 90 degrees against each other. What makes it hard is volume: nearly every tile touching a wall needs an angled cut, so a room that would take a day in a straight lay stretches to two or three. Homeowners who’ve watched a crew fight a herringbone install assume it takes special skill. It mostly takes special patience and a saw blade that hasn’t gone dull halfway through.

What Is the Hardest Tile Pattern to Lay?

Herringbone gets the reputation, but chevron edges it out for difficulty. Chevron uses factory-mitred tile that has to line up at the point with zero gap, and there’s no adjusting a bad cut on site the way you can nudge a herringbone joint. Basketweave and pinwheel patterns sit below herringbone on the difficulty scale, since both repeat on a grid instead of running diagonal cuts to every wall. Straight grid stays the easiest by a wide margin. Herringbone lands solidly in the upper half, and it’s the pattern that gets requested most often on Island jobs right now despite that.

Tools and Materials for a Herringbone Layout

Wet saw with a fresh blade, a notched trowel sized to the tile (3/8 inch for most floor tile, smaller for wall), tile spacers, a laser level or a long chalk line, a rubber mallet, and a grout float round out the basics. Thinset mortar rated for the tile size, tile leveling clips if the tile runs long or thin, and a margin trowel for tight corners finish the list. Skip the cheap wet saw rental if the room is more than a small bathroom floor. A dull or wobbly blade chips edges on every single cut in a pattern this cut-heavy, and that adds up fast.

Where Do I Start My Herringbone Pattern?

Dead center of the room, referenced off the most visible sightline rather than the walls themselves.

Finding the Center Line

Measure the length and width of the room and snap a chalk line at the midpoint of each, crossing in the middle. That intersection is the starting point for the first tile, full stop. On a kitchen floor, the sightline from the main entry usually matters more than dead-center math, so we’ll sometimes shift the reference line a few inches to keep full tiles landing under the range or the island rather than centered on a wall nobody looks at directly. Walls are rarely square. Working off the centerline instead of an edge keeps that out-of-square error split evenly across both sides instead of dumping it all into one sliver of cut tile at the far wall.

Which Way Should the Pattern Point

Toward the main entry, most of the time. Point the zigzag’s arrow at the doorway people walk through most, and the pattern pulls the eye into the room. Aim it away instead and the room reads slightly longer. Narrow galley kitchens and hallways benefit from that trick. Neither direction is wrong. Pick one and stay consistent across the whole floor, since switching partway through is the kind of mistake that’s invisible on paper and glaring once the tile’s down.

How Should Herringbone Tile Be Laid?

Dry-fit first, set second, cut last. Skipping the dry-fit is the single most common shortcut that turns into a redo.

Dry-Fit Before Anything Gets Set

Lay out a full section of the pattern, dry, no mortar, and walk the room. Check where the doorways land on the tile, whether any cut piece comes out smaller than a quarter tile, and whether the pattern lines up with a fireplace or an island the way it should. A sliver of cut tile at a visible doorway is fixable now with a small shift of the centerline. It’s not fixable once the mortar’s cured.

Setting Tile Row by Row

Work one full diagonal line at a time out from center, all the way to the wall, before starting the next line. That’s the step almost every DIY job we’ve seen skips, and it’s the one that causes the most grief. Jump between lines and it’s easy to lose track of which joint lines up with which, and the whole field drifts out of alignment by the time it reaches the far side of the room. Spread thinset with the notched trowel in a section you can tile before it skins over, usually a few square feet at a time, and press each tile in with a slight twist to seat it.

Cutting the Edges and Corners

Every tile that meets a wall in a herringbone field needs an angled cut, and there’s no way around it. Mark the cut line on the tile itself with a pencil before it goes to the saw, dry-fit the piece into place to confirm the mark, then cut. Corners take two cuts at opposing angles, and those are the pieces worth taking slow. A rushed corner cut is the fastest way to end up with a visible gap that no amount of grout hides.

How Much Extra Tile to Order

Fifteen to twenty percent over the square footage, not the standard ten percent that works fine for a straight grid. That’s the number we quote on every herringbone job, and it surprises people until they see how much waste comes off the wall cuts. Nearly every tile touching a perimeter gets cut at an angle, and the offcut from an angled cut is almost never reusable somewhere else in the pattern the way a straight cut sometimes is. Order short on a herringbone job and the job stops mid-week waiting on a tile order that may not match the batch already on the floor.

Keeping Herringbone Joints Flat

Lippage, one tile edge sitting proud of its neighbour, is the complaint we hear most on herringbone floors laid with long plank-style tile. A half-offset pattern on a 12×24 plank puts the high point of one tile right next to the flat middle of the next, and that mismatch shows up as a grout line that catches light unevenly underfoot. Tile leveling clips solve this. They pull adjacent tiles into the same plane while the thinset sets, and on plank-format herringbone we treat them as standard equipment rather than an upsell. Square or near-square tile in the 6×6 to 8×8 range rarely needs clips. Anything longer and thinner, use them.

Grouting and Finishing

Let the thinset cure fully before grouting, usually 24 to 48 hours depending on the product and the room’s humidity. Sanded grout for joints over an eighth inch, unsanded for tighter spacing, and epoxy grout where the floor sees heavy water or stains, showers and entryways especially. Work the grout diagonally across the joints with a float, wipe the haze with a damp sponge before it sets hard, and hold off sealing for a couple of days if the grout doesn’t come pre-sealed. A cement-based grout on a herringbone floor with this many joint intersections takes real time to fill properly. Rushing the float pass leaves pinholes that show up as dark specks once the floor’s dry.

Mistakes We See on Herringbone Jobs

Starting at a wall instead of the center line tops the list, every time. Close behind it: buying tile across two different batches, since even a small shade variation between lots reads as obvious once it’s laid out in a repeating diagonal pattern rather than hidden in a random field. Skipping the dry-fit is third, and it’s the one that costs the most in redone labour. Fourth, and this one’s easy to miss: not checking that the walls are actually square before locking in the centerline. A room that’s out of square by half an inch over its length forces uneven cuts down one whole side, and there’s no fixing that after the fact without pulling tile back up.

Herringbone on Walls vs Floors

Same layout logic, different tile. Floor herringbone wants a tile with some heft, porcelain in the 4×8 to 8×16 range holds up to foot traffic and keeps the angled edges from chipping the way a thin ceramic can. Wall herringbone, backsplashes and shower accent walls especially, works well with thinner subway-format tile since there’s no foot traffic to stress the joints. Backsplashes are where we see the most experimenting, mini herringbone in a 1×3 or 1×4 format that would look busy across a whole floor but reads as a clean detail behind a stove. Shower walls need the same centerline discipline as a floor, plus a waterproof membrane behind the backer board before any tile goes up. Skip that step on a wet wall and the pattern’s the least of the problems six months later. There’s usually a cheaper way through this than the obvious one. Talk to us and we’ll point at it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How should herringbone tile be laid?

From a chalked centerline outward, one full diagonal row at a time, dry-fit first. Set tile at 45 or 90 degrees against its neighbour, work outward from the middle of the room, and save all the angled wall cuts for last.

Where do I start my herringbone pattern?

Dead center of the room, referenced off the main sightline rather than an outer wall. That keeps out-of-square walls from dumping all the cut-tile slivers into one visible corner.

What is the hardest tile pattern to lay?

Chevron, technically, since factory-mitred points leave no room for adjustment on site. Herringbone runs a close second, mostly because of how many angled wall cuts it demands compared to a straight grid.

Is herringbone tiling difficult?

More labour-intensive than a straight lay, not more technically demanding. The pattern itself is simple geometry. What eats the time is cutting nearly every perimeter tile at an angle and dry-fitting the field before any mortar goes down.

Not sure your floor is square enough to start a herringbone pattern without redoing half the wall cuts? A floor tile installation visit settles that before the first tile gets cut.

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Jordan Tile & Stone

Tile installation and repair across central Vancouver Island: Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Oyster Bay, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Nanaimo.

Phone: (250) 201-3891
Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm
Address: 4423 Patricia Rd, Oyster Bay, BC V9H 1B8