So long, ancient sheet vinyl. Hello, fancy new floors
DIY'er: Erinn McNulty of Bluffton
Project: New kitchen floor
With a little help and a lot of laughs, Erinn Mc-Nulty had a new kitchen floor in a weekend. Here's her story.
I grew up in a house where, instead of taking big vacations, every three to five years my parents would do a major home remodel. So when I bought my first house in January, my first thoughts were, "how can I make it better and mine?"
My first requirement was pulling up the old sheet vinyl flooring in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. The flooring was ripped and yellowed from age. On a recommendation from my mom and dad, who would be helping me with the install, I chose to put down Tarkett vinyl tile with two-sided grout lines, so no messy grouting was necessary -- just glue it and stick it. I searched around online and paid about $2.50 per square foot for the tile.
RIPPING OUT THE OLD STUFF
In any kind of remodel, tearing out the old is always the most fun part for me. I suppose it's my inner child coming out and thinking I'm getting away with something I'm not supposed to be doing. In this case it was easy to tear out the old sheet vinyl. I used a utility knife to slice it and it tore up in clean strips. Getting the concrete slab clean and prepped to lay the new tile was an absolute pain. First the scraping, then the washing, then the patching and drying.
A LITTLE PLANNING GOES A LONG WAY
Before installing the Tarkett tile, we first laid it out "dry" (without gluing it to the floor) and cut the tiles to fit. Once everything was cut, we labeled the pieces, removed them, and put down the glue. We let the glue sit and then started installing the tile. Be prepared for the tiles to slip and slide. Make sure that first row is as tight as you can get it because any gaps there will translate to how nicely the rest of the floor goes together.
Between my father and me it only took about three hours to lay all the tile, with mom only stepping in exposed glue once and having her slipper pulled off. Lots of laughs ensued, and the final product was a labor of love of father and daughter.
This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 11:47 AM with the headline "So long, ancient sheet vinyl. Hello, fancy new floors."