Tackling the Kitchen

There I was this morning, standing in our kitchen, doing the dishes, and grumbling to myself about the agony my foot was in, again from the cracked and peeling vinyl tile in our kitchen.

The tile has been an eye- and foot-sore since Brian first moved in more than five years ago now. Since I moved in after our wedding, I've managed to gash my feet several times on the flooring. (goodness, will it really be five years since we were married this September?!?!?)

So today, once more hurting, I decided I was going to Fix. It.

It's important to note here that this is Brian's busy season. He left for work before 8 this morning, and likely wont' get back tonight until well after 7. If I was very, very good, this remodel job could be completed and a lovely surprise for him when he gets home tonight.

I was already planning a jaunt into town, so I just decided to add Lowe's to my stops. There I spent some time meditating in the vinyl tile aisle.

I picked out something that I think is rather nice. It's reminiscent of what I put into the entry way, but it has a pattern that could be laid out in an interesting way. It's also cheap, which means that we're not pouring more money into our pit-of-a-house-that-we-don't-own, and that I could afford what I needed to do the entire kitchen and still have money left over for a latte.

I got it home, and got started.

First, I recorded how shitty our old floor was for posterity.

At first glance, it doesn't look so bad. A bit dated and cheesy, maybe, but not bad:





Except then you notice that there's some rogue tiles over by the cabinets that really, really don't match. They actually match the eating-area part of our kitchen, which is divided from the food-prep part of the kitchen by the counter/pantry shelves that you can't see in this picture.

A slightly closer look reveals that we're also camoflauging some tiles that are missing completely with a kitchen rug, just in front of our sink:






And if you take a closer look, you'll noticed that the tile is loose around the edges, and cracking away. It sticks up sometimes when it is really humid. I scrape the soles of my feet on it all the time, and I have actually drawn blood from some serious gashes on more than one occasion.






It only took me about twenty minutes to tear up the old tiles. I'd swiped a paint scraper from the maintenance yard, which was just the ticket to loosen the few still-stuck places on the old tile:





Once I got a look at the subfloor, I didn't feel badly about slapping down some crummy flooring that won't last for more than a few years. Truly, our house is held together with bubblegum and toothpicks. Even though I've rationally known this for the entire time I've lived here, it still astonishes me. It took me a LONG time to scrape the floor and vacuum up all the detritus.

Then, I got ready to start laying the tile. The first course looked fantastic:





Yes, I know you're supposed to measure from the center of the floor and work outwards, but please believe me when I tell you that it would not matter in the slightest in our house. The floor is in no way to be confused with flat. None of the walls are square with each other, or even perfectly straight up and down. The best case scenario was to match up as best I could to the existing seam and work from there.

I did wind up accidentally ripping the toe kick off of one of the bottom of the cabinets, but it wasn't actually being held in place by anything! I found a fork under the stove when I tipped it up to slide the tiles under the edge.

What?!?! There was absolutely no way that the stove or fridge were coming out of where they are. I honestly think that the counter was laid after the fridge was put in place, because there are mere millimeters between the fridge and the counter and the fridge and the wall. I can't even open the door up wide enough to take out one of the crisper drawers!!

By lunch time, I had the bulk of the tiling done. All that was left was fitting the non-standard tiles around the edges:





I went up to lunch, where Brian sat unsuspectingly next to me, having no clue what I was up to. Muahahahahaha.

After lunch, it took me less than an hour to finish custom-cutting the tiles around the edges. I screwed the threshhold back down between the kitchen and eating area and cleaned off the kitchen table, which I'd been using as a staging area. Ten more minutes of cleaning and our house looks like nothing happened. Brian won't have the first idea what I've been up to until he gets into the kitchen proper. HEEEE!

Here's our fabulous new floor:





Once the school year has ended and I have more than just one day off, I'll tackle the eating area part of the kitchen. That tile is obviously slightly newer. It's not cracking apart yet and is still stuck down pretty firmly. It'll take a lot more elbow grease to rip it up, but the place is going to look spectacular when I get it done.

Truly, I should have done this ages ago!