Friday, November 9, 2012

New Kitchen Floor and tips!

My kitchen floor isn't COMPLETELY done but I'm TOO excited to not share!!!  

First off I had to clean the old floor to get it ready for the stick on vinyl tiles.  I never knew about floor stripper and oh.my.word.  

I should have cleaned with this stuff before to get all the grime off.  I have washed this floor on my hands and knees and NEVER got it this clean.  I just used a mop and voila!  Check out the before and after!  Wow wow wow.  (click to enlarge photo)
Tip#1.  Use a floor stripper to clean grime.
Here is the before and after shot of my new kitchen floor!  It's like night and day.  haha... Thought that'd be extra punny considering the pics were taking at night and day... get it?  *snorty geek laugh*


Isn't it amazing!?!!!!  My friend Amanda did it for me.  We went to Lowe's together and picked out the tile.  She worked many hours laying out the pattern with two different size tiles.  12x12 & 18x18 Stainmaster Corsica Cavern Stone Finish.  It's a "luxury" vinyl tile. 

She is a smarty pants and kept a bit of the backing on to hold the tile in place til she had it lined up.  

Tip#2. Use the backing to protect hands from the sticky tile.
We are going to grout this tile too!  She used these little tile spacers turned sideways to make sure the whole floor was spaced at 1/8".  It's so even and perfect.  I love it!  I bought a darker grout called sandalwood so just waiting for that to get shipped to me and we'll finish this project!
Tip#3. Turn tile spacers sideways on the floor to get perfect 1/8" spacing.
Next phase of the kitchen will be a new buffet counter.  Then moving cabinets and making a window with a serving counter between the diningroom and kitchen.  So excited.  The floor alone has made a HUGE difference.  *happy dance*  Thank you Amanda!!!!!!!!

2 comments:

Juliet said...

I am wondering how the floor is holding up. I deeply desire to redo NY kitchen floor AND use these same type of tiles over my sheet vinyl (or is it linoleum?)floor. Have you had any issues?

Mary said...

Thanks for asking Juliet! I decided to write a blog post to include photos and to answer for you and anyone else wondering!
http://aproductiveendeavor.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-floor-is-holdin-up.html