How To Apply Tile Stickers Best Quality Tile Stickers Review
Do you know how to apply tile stickers? This will explain exactly how to do it plus will show you the best quality tile stickers. As there are so many variables in regard to what is good or bad, I’ve tried to list below many of the points that come up from this question.
Good On Price Does cheap mean rubbish?
What Is Quality How is quality defined?
Quality Means Consistency? The ISO standards view
What Does Good Quality Mean To You How would you define quality?
Defining Good A few more points about quality
Best Quality Tile Stickers Review – Four Tile Sticker Types Video
Defining Bad What to look out for
The Online Buying Sequence How did your research go?
Websites Qualities What a website should be doing
Delivery You’ve placed your order – now what?
How To Apply Tile Stickers? – Installation information
Summary My overall opinion on good v bad.
Before you even start your buying process it could be helpful if you took a quick read through the points in this article. There might be something mentioned you’d not thought to look out for that could save you from overlooking a small but crucial detail or making a really big mistake.
If you are looking for best quality tile transfers then you can get them from Amazon, yes, I have been using these and that is how I know that tile covers like that are absolutely fine quality but for a good price:
Click Here for – Tile Stickers for Kitchen
It’s Not That Black And White.
While this question might seem simple, the answer is far from simple. For a start, how would you define good and bad? Floor tile stickers are good for using on floors but bad for using on walls. Not all wall tile stickers are suitable for use in kitchens and some that are good for kitchens are bad for bathroom use. What about the buying service you got?
Click here for – Grey Vinyl Tile Decals
Introduction
I’ve started with the one about price as that seems to be most peoples benchmark for deciding what quality is like. Discussing quality next seemed the most obvious choice followed by the tile stickers themselves. What might not seem so obvious is to talk about the buying process. However, it is part of the experience of the product and the good or bad that happens here can affect how you feel towards your whole project.
Good On Price?
Some tiles are priced really low, and that’s good as it means everyone can afford them. However, they are mostly plain tile stickers and that’s bad if you wanted a pattern within each tile. Some tiles are priced high. What’s good about a high tile price? That’s one way of knowing you are getting a good quality long lasting product, often with a design that’s not possible with a cheaper sticker. The majority of tile stickers people like the best are 2
Click here for – Black and White Tile Stickers
What Is Quality?
Talking of quality, that’s another whole spectrum of variance. Some years ago, the International Standards Organization introduced a quality standards scheme. This was originally known as ISO 9000, but then had quite a few variants depending on what it applied to. In the US the ISO schemes are known as ANSI-Accredited. Companies could get ISO 9000 Certification. You would expect products that a certified company produced would have to be of ‘high quality’ to attain certification. Thereby giving the buyer of those products peace of mind that they were buying good quality products, right? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Quality Means Consistency
What the certification really meant was that the company could produce a consistent quality. Not necessarily a good quality. They were good at operating their same system all the time no matter how good or bad it was. Even then, that certification might only apply to a small part of the companies’ operation. So don’t get fooled by any company that displays and ISO 9000 certificate. It probably doesn’t apply to their products, only the way they make their products or the way their management operates.
What Does Good Quality Mean To You?
When buying any goods or services, I expect those goods or services to do the job they are advertised to do for a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable price. That’s my own definition of quality and I’ll bet your expectations are pretty much the same. When you apply that criteria to tile stickers, it means you expect the stickers to actually stick, be the size that you ordered from the website, to keep their printed pattern on, even when wiped over many many times, and to be close to the advertised color and pattern. Screen colors and actual printed colors are a bit different so you do have to allow for that.
Defining Good
Essentially, a good tile sticker is one that fits our definition above but we can define it a little more than that. There can be variations in the material stickers are made from. If you’re putting them in a bathroom, then apart from having a suitable design, you also need the type of adhesive on them that is resistant to water and steam. In a kitchen they must be resistant to heat and water for safety’s sake. It also helps to have the vinyl material as thin as possible too. Apart from being able to stick better and follow any exiting background contours, a thin sticker is far easier to cut and work with.
Best Quality Tile Stickers Review – Four Tile Sticker Types
In this video, I give a short overview to show you exactly the differences of the four tile cover types. There is additional information written below that might help you even more in your choice of tile covers, plus a surprise fifth entry.
When talking about different tile sticker types to choose for which situation, there are four basic types of tile stickers for you to choose from. Plain, patterned, PVC vinyl and 3D gel filled self-adhesive. Most types can be suitable for bathrooms, kitchens or elsewhere, but you must read each suppliers recommendations to make sure theirs is right for you.
Plain
The plain tiles are good for using where the area is already ‘busy’ or ‘crowded’ looking. They help to create a feeling of expanse, a clear area. In small rooms a single color can make the room feel bigger. Then again, by using two or three complimentary colors, you could make a chequerboard effect. Or perhaps add in the odd patterned sticker as a feature on a single color wall.
You can buy high quality plain black tile transfers from Amazon here: Click Here For Black Tile Transfers
Patterned
These are the most popular type of tile stickers. By changing not only the color but also the pattern on the stickers, it is possible to quickly make a big change to how your walls look. They are easy to cut as they are thin and pliable. They come in such a vast range of patterns and colors that it is quite easy to find something suitable for virtually any room design.
PVC Vinyl
Nowadays these are old technology and the least popular type of tile sticker. Because of the way they are manufactured, they are quite expensive too. That said, they do have their uses. They are very hard wearing. So anywhere that needs a more robust tile sticker, a utility room or workshop perhaps, then these could be what you need. They do not fit well over old ceramic tiles and are best used on a flat surface, like a plastered wall.
3D Gel Filled Self-Adhesive Smart Tile
The latest innovation in tile sticker technology. They have a kind of padded look to them that makes you want to touch them to see if the effect is real. They don’t all come as regular tiles sizes or shapes because most of them are mosaic sized tiles. You can see I’ve used them to do a whole wall but they also mix well with other tiles and tile stickers to make a border or feature. They don’t all come in plain colors either. Some even have a glitter effect molded into them. There are a couple of disadvantages to them. One is the price, they are not cheap. The other is, they have a sticky back adhesive that is not suitable for use in steamy or wet areas.
A Fifth Type Of Tile Sticker?
As briefly mentioned right at the beginning, there are such things as floor tile stickers. I did look into these once; here’s what I found. They are a completely different structure to the kind of sticker I talk about on this website. Made of thick, flexible, adhesive backed rubber and designed to be hard-wearing, scratch and scuff proof. There are three basic designs and patterned tiles are very expensive. None are suitable for putting on walls.
Defining Bad
- A bad sticker is mostly down to the manufacturing process although some people might not be so adept at working with them. In most cases, a thick tile is not easy to work with no matter how good the installer is. They must have a perfectly flat background too. They don’t fit over existing tiles very well at all.
- The color of all the tile stickers in a batch must be identical. Some brands seem to think it more ‘authentic’ to have a color variation but really it’s just a sloppy manufacturing problem.
- Some manufacturers use cheap or inferior quality inks for their stickers. While this can show up as ‘blotchy’ on the tile, it usually shows up by not holding their color for long and they fade fairly quickly once installed. Unless you want to replace your stickers every year, some people do, these are best avoided. Unfortunately, they are NOT always the cheaper brands on the market, you need to check some reviews.
- The corners of a tile sticker curling off after installation can also be a problem of some poor adhesive choices by the manufacturers. Sometimes, it can be the installer not cleaning the surface properly before applying the stickers.
- By careful study of some product reviews it’s often possible to spot what is bad manufacturing and what is probably people who are not good at applying their stickers. This kind of research shows up those manufacturing and installation faults that only show up a short period of time after fitting. Thereby helping you to know what to be careful of when fitting your stickers and which manufacturers or suppliers to avoid.
The Online Buying Sequence
It’s not just down to the products themselves that can cause a bad reaction to the experience of buying anything, including tile stickers. If you are looking for ideas, or a certain type of product, then you want to be able to find a choice of whatever you are looking for fast. Especially if you are on a mobile phone rather than a hardwired network connection. So the speed of getting the right search results matters. You need a fast loading website. That’s one of the reasons people shop on Amazon for many products. Amazon have put a lot of resources into making sure all visitors to their site has fast loading. They are not the only site to shop on of course. Many independent retailers also have extremely efficient and successful websites.
Websites Qualities
A bad website comes from not knowing how best to navigate a site once you land on it. Things you need to know are:- what designs are available from that site, do they supply the types of kitchen, bathroom, other use or location in the type of sticker you want? What sizes do they come in? Are the designs I like available in the sizes I want? Can I order a sample quantity and what quantities can I order in anyway? What are their prices like? How about delivery times? What happens if anything goes wrong, is it easy to contact them? Allowing for incompetent buyers and installers, what are their reviews like? How do I order and what payment methods are available? All of these contribute to a good or bad experience when buying not only tile stickers but many other products as well.
Delivery
Assuming everything went well at the ordering stage, the next good or bad experience could be with delivery. While on the sales site there should have been some guidelines as to when you can expect delivery of your order. From experience, I know that suppliers often give longer delivery times on their websites than is usually achieved by the mailmen or couriers. Apart from the fact it makes them look good, those stated time have to be longer in case of unforeseen delays. People don’t often complain when something arrives sooner than stated but they sure do if a delivery is late, even if only by one day. The downside is that you might have to be home when the delivery is made and it’s not possible to arrange for someone to be in sooner if you don’t know when ‘sooner’ is. If you are not home when they call, a card is often left asking you to contact them to let them know when they can deliver. So it’s not all bad.
How To Apply Tile Stickers? Installation info.
These days you can find information about how to do just about anything on YouTube, so learning how to apply tile stickers should not be any problem. However, better sticker suppliers will also supply their own information for you. Not only on how to do the actual setting out, how to cut and apply your stickers, but also how to clean and prepare the area before you start doing the setting out work.
I have mead a video so you will get a good idea hoe to apply tile stickers.
See also, very useful Tile Stickers Calculator (Click Here)
Summary
I hope I’ve managed to cover many of the questions you might have had about looking for, buying and fitting tile stickers in regard to what is good and bad about them. Hopefully I even answered some questions you had not even thought to ask. Of course, not every point has been covered. That would be too long and very boring for most people, including me!
The biggest takeaway I think is that price is NOT always a good guide to good quality tile stickers, just as much as a cheap price does not meant the stickers you buy are rubbish. There are far more variables to be taken into consideration. When people talk of quality, buyers mean good quality in the context of what they are looking for, and sellers mean good quality by their own standards, not yours necessarily.
Here is my final point for you to consider when you are doing your research and reading other people’s reviews.
Were you aware that someone’s experience on a seller’s website would affect their whole attitude to the quality of a product? A tortuous route to even getting the stickers they want will not put them in the best of mindsets when they come to actually fit them. Mistakes then happen and next thing you know, someone is looking at their bad review. Not because of the tile stickers themselves, but because of the bad experience they had right back at the ordering stage.
Unlike many, you are now forearmed with the information to help you assess reviews better and to avoid the pitfalls of what is really an easy and pleasant home upgrade project.
More useful information:
You will find more ideas how to revamp your kitchen here…
Tile Stickers Are Removable
How To Cover Old tiles