New Floor

Two years ago, Nick tiled the floor in our kitchen.

It ended up costing us around $600.

Imagine my dismay, when shortly after we had the floors installed, the grout started coming up, and the tiles started cracking.

The best we can figure is that the cement compound under the tiles was a bad batch.

Over time, my floors went from looking nice, to looking like garbage.

At first, I bought a rug to hide the trouble spots.

Then I bought a second, bigger rug.

But eventually, there was no hiding it.  The floors were crap.

The final straw was when Reagan cut her hand on a broken piece of tile she picked up.

I did a lot of research on different types of flooring.  I needed something budget-friendly, and something that DIY novices could handle.

Lumber liquidators had a product that fit the bill.  So, I purchased it, and we got to work.

Nick did most of the demo work.

The existing tile came up with very little effort.

The hardest part was getting the backer-board out.  Nick spent a lot of time on that.

Then, I set about removing the paste from the sub floor, leftover from the 1980's vinyl flooring that had initially been in the kitchen.

The sub-floor was finally prepped, and ready.
Over the next 3 days I spent about 8 hours installing the floor in our 100 square foot kitchen.  The most time-consuming part was cutting the planks to fit in the nooks and crannies around the kitchen, and in the pantry.

But I felt such a sense of accomplishment when it was finally done!

Sure, it's a bamboo pattern, that's directly next to the real wood flooring in my dining room.  Clash!

It didn't do anything to boost the attractive factor of my kitchen.  I'm still living with Formica countertops, and the orange oak cabinets.  But it is a definite improvement.

And at .49 cents/square foot, I'm not going to cry if it only lasts 5 years.  All told, I put new flooring in my kitchen for less than $75.

And I did it myself.