Flooring is done!

This week I decided to tackle a fairly large project. My kitchen floor! I've lived in my home for almost 10 years and I've always hated it. No matter how hard I cleaned it, it never looked clean. I even tried Cinderella style washing it on my hands on knees and it just was disgusting.

The cost of flooring though always intimidated me. Last year I was ready to take the plunge and get new flooring but then my cousin mentioned possibly redoing her kitchen and letting me buy her oven and fridge off of her. They are maybe 5 years old compared to my 20+ year old appliances. My husband (fiance at the time) said why don't we wait for new flooring until we get the new appliances.

Due to life and other circumstances they never renovated their kitchen and two weeks ago our oven broke. I'm probably one of the few people who rejoiced when her oven broke. It meant I could get rid of the eye sore and get a new one! This also meant it was time to rethink flooring again. I couldn't afford to get really expensive flooring but after a lot of research I found TrafficMaster Ceramica flooring. I read reviews on the Home Depot website. I searched google, message boards and found various blogs with other people who use it and I made my decision to buy it.

The blogs that I read really helped with my decision and they are partly why I decided to start my own blog. Reading real people's experiences and their successes, failures, mistakes, fixes, etc are what help.

So here is mine. Many people were able to put the Ceramica right on top of their current floor. It is made specifically to be able to do this. My floor however needed to be ripped up. It had two layers already and it was cracked and peeling in some areas.

Here is my before photo.

I started by ripping up the tile. This involved a floor scraper but that was gouging the wood underneath so I just used a scraper and a mallet and hammered away at it. It came up slowly but it worked.

Finally it was all up but the floor itself was sticky from the adhesive. I used towels soaked in warm water and set them briefly on the floor to help get the adhesive up and then scraped it with the scraper. There was also one area that had the wood up a bit. This was going to pose a problem.

Other than that one area, the rest of the floor was good and level. Now here's my mistake and the one thing I wish I'd done differently. I should have either ripped up that wood and replaced it with new underlayment. Or I could have try just getting some good nails with decent heads on them and nail it down then try some floor leveler. I did neither of these things. The guy at home depot who saw my photo, told me to buy floor level compound and just put that on and then sand it. That's what I did but it never was level with the old floor. So unfortunately the tile that I laid there seems to be raised a bit and I'm not sure how well it's going to stick. That is not a fault of the product but of a first time do it yourselfer.

Lots of reviews said to do chalk lines but my kitchen is not rectangle and I just wasn't able to do that. I was able to pretty much follow the lines on the floor though and it turned out pretty well. I started with full tiles right by my living room carpet. I wanted a full tile and not an edge. I was able to take it all the way to the back and the last tile I only had to cut about an inch off so it looks like an almost full tile. I lucked out very well all around with this.

Cutting the tiles isn't too hard. Score it a few times with a sharp utility knife and then bend it. A few times I even used some snipper things I found in a tool box and cut it. The weird edges around the door frame were the hardest ones but it was like fitting a puzzle piece.

Here is some progress with the tiles laid down without the grout. Once I got them all laid I was able to grout right away. I used Simple Pre-Mixed grout in Alabaster. This was my first time grouting and it was very easy! I did about 4-5 tiles a a time and you just put it in the grooves and joints. Then you wipe it up with a sponge. Circular motions work and it takes a few times rinsing your sponge.

Here is the final picture!

As a first time tiler this was a very easy project. It was labor intensive and my body is sore but definitely worth it. I don't know how long it will last or hold up but I've read follow up comments and blogs on other people and it's been a couple years and people are still happy. I hope to be able to come back in a couple years and say I'm still very happy!

Also, here's what started all this. The oven.

I'm so happy to be rid of the yellowed appliance. I also put some temporary wall paper from Target as a back splash. I read a lot about contact paper and temporary wall paper as back splashs so I threw this up before the oven was delivered. I will do a post on that with more photos of it around the sink too.