tile on a tabletop?

I want to cover my kitchen table with a tile mosaic. Can I put the tile on plywood, or should I use a backer board? I don't want the adhesive or grout to crack under pressure.

Plywood shrinks and swells like all wood. Use thin cement board screwed or nailed to the table top. Install tile as you would anywhere else. Use a decorative wood molding for the border stained to match table, if you like, to finish it. Good Luck!

Ethipos:

I installed 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 inch mosaic tile directly over my plywood kitchen countertop with thin set with no problems. It lasted about 8 years before I remove the tile, thin set and put a laminate top over it. No cracks, except between the back of the counter top and the tile backsplash I stuck on the wall, but that joint always cracks.

I would use the cement backerboard IF you want to salvage that table and do something else with it in the future. Putting down the backerboard will allow you to take off the tile and thin set simply by pulling off the backer board. If you tile directly over the plywood, then it's a lot of work removing the thin set, as I found out.

Also, I wouldn't use a mosaic tile. The biggest nuisance with ceramic tile countertops is that the grout lines get dirt and liquids in them, and they're hard to clean. The bigger the tile, the fewer grout lines you have to clean. Maybe use a 36" by 36" tile if they make one.

Also, if after doing this project, you actually like the looks of it, use an acrylic grout sealer on your grout lines. If you really don't like the looks of it, but you're willing to give it a chance to grow on you, use a cheap silicone based sealer. There are 3 technologies to sealing grout; silicone based grout sealers are the shortest lasting (about 3 or 4 years in a shower), and the drawback is that you can't really remove them, you just keep putting new sealer over old. You don't want to use a silicone based sealer in a shower because it prevents you from thereafter using a better sealer. Acrylic grout sealers, like silicone sealers, rely on coating the grout to prevent water or anything else from penetrating the grout and staining it. Acrylic sealers last longer, and I've been averaging 6 or 7 years in showers, and you can remove them and replace them when that time comes. Penetrating sealers work by a completely different means... they seep into the grout and change the wettability of the grout so that the water just beads up on the grout and drips off. THIS IS the kind of sealer you want to use in a shower because it penetrates into the grout and is therefore protected from the erosion of the shower water. These sealers really can't be removed either, and they last about 10 years before you have to put more on. HOWEVER, you DON't want to use a penetrating sealer on a countertop or table because it doesn't coat the grout. The grout will remain porous and cheeze and stuff will get mooshed into the grout and you can't get it out and you can't stop it from rotting in there and posing a health hazard to the roaches. With a silicone or acrylic based sealer, you end up with an easy to clean smooth coating over the grout that you don't get with penetrating sealers.

Thank you both VERY much!!! I had, in fact, planned on using a wood or faux wood molding to finish the edges. I had debated on whether to make a round table top, or a square one, and using molding solved that dilema ;o) . I am planning on making a table top that fits over my old table top, so removing the tile later isn't an issue, I just don't want the tile to fall out before I finish using it. As for the mosaic, I'm going to make it out of broken tile in colors to match my kitchen, and keep them spaced as close together as possible. I would like some of those 36" x 36" tile for my kitchen floor (250 sq. ft). You both answered every problem except how to get my husband to agree to a square table instead of a rectangle.....

THANK YOU!!!