So my gf and I painted the dining room and kitchen this weekend. In the process that required moving the oven and fridge. the cheap ass laminate floor ripped and folded on itself in a couple places so now we have to replace the floor.

How much does this usually run? I'd guess the floor in the kitchen is approx 135sq ft. How much more expensive is tile? We're rather worn or more so frustrated by the process and may just pay to have it done.

What about other types of flooring (not interested in hard wood)?

Thanks!

8/30/2009 11:57:31 PM

polished concrete

8/31/2009 12:10:00 AM

You could do a nice porcelain tile for $1-$2 per square foot + installation if you don't want to do it yourself. It'd be a nice upgrade from linoleum. You can probably find it cheaper than $1 to be honest, but with such a small area (135 sq. ft.) I'd focus more on what looks good and will last.

8/31/2009 12:14:19 AM

I just measured it's actually smaller than that since underneath the counters doesn't count for flooring it's more like 90 sq ft.

Yeah we want quality, just kinda curious how much I could expect it to cost. I'm sure I could do it myself I just dread moving that oven and fridge out of the kitchen and back in

8/31/2009 12:27:46 AM

polished concrete is pretty damn fly.

i'm doing my kitchen right now too. the bitch part is getting up all the lamanent glue that's stuck to the floor. i'm either going to go get detergent or fuckit and just get up as much as i can before putting it down. u'll have to buy a tile scraper if you plan on doing it yourself.

8/31/2009 12:33:01 AM

You can lay tile on top of laminate as long as the laminate is still glued down solidly and the height isn't a problem (tile + laminate is slightly taller than tile alone.) Just pull up any laminate that is loose. Make sure you get a thinset that claims to bond with laminate if you go that route.

[Edited on August 31, 2009 at 12:42 AM. Reason : l]

8/31/2009 12:39:55 AM

the current laminate that tore came up far too easy, the previous glue was spot glued, thats why it rolled up and tore when I moved the appliances back into their corners, I was rather pissed when I cut the piece and looked at the bottom and noticed hardly any glue/residue

on the bright side, easy to pull up

8/31/2009 12:43:24 AM

Yeah...pull it up if it's like that.
Hope it isn't old enough to have asbestos.
What is under there? Just subfloor? More laminates?

8/31/2009 12:52:45 AM

subfloor/concrete slab

8/31/2009 1:01:29 AM

That's cool. Easy to work with at least. You might need to level it for tile, but probably not. It all depends on whether you have any notable grade changes. Just get a good thinset, plenty of tile, a tile cutter, and start gluing them down. Okay, there is a little more to it than that, but not much. Google finding the center of the room and how to lay tile from the center out. It's not that hard.

[Edited on August 31, 2009 at 1:05 AM. Reason : l]

8/31/2009 1:05:22 AM

cool, thanks for the tips man!

8/31/2009 2:14:09 AM

If you are installing over wood subflooring, I wouldn't lay the tile directly on it. Any moisture gets to it and you have cracked grout and tile. Put some concrete backer board down first. It's pretty cheap and will be alot more permanent.

8/31/2009 7:48:01 AM

I just did my own tile work for the first time a few months ago, and it is suprisingly easy, just labor intensive. I recommend doing it yourself.

There are some great videos on youtube on how to lay tile.

8/31/2009 7:58:20 AM

Quote :

"There are some great videos on youtube on how to lay tile."

Also, sometimes Lowes or Home Depot will do instructional things on the weekends. You call and figure out when they're doing one on tile.


Also, you don't want to do concrete unless you can it at least 1.5-2 inches thick to avoid cracking. Even then, you want to make sure that the nominal maximum aggregate size in the mix isn't greater than half the thickness of the cross section. (eg: if you're pouring 1" thick surface coat, you don't want 1/2" or bigger rocks in it.)

[Edited on August 31, 2009 at 8:48 AM. Reason : -]

8/31/2009 8:47:18 AM

Quote :

"If you are installing over wood subflooring, I wouldn't lay the tile directly on it. Any moisture gets to it and you have cracked grout and tile. Put some concrete backer board down first. It's pretty cheap and will be alot more permanent."

definitely. Also, if you're over a crawlspace, with the added weight of the backerboard + tile, you may want to reinforce the joists under it.

8/31/2009 8:53:18 AM

It can get to be a pain for large rooms, but for something as small as you're talking, should be relatively easy to do yourself. One thing to consider is large vs. small tile--if you do large tiles it goes down a lot faster, but any mistakes are more noticeable.

Consider yourself lucky that the linoleum came up as easily as it did, btw. My roommate and I replaced the vinyl flooring in his old place with tile, and we found a second linoleum floor under the first, and that one was so over-glued that we had to scrape every bit of it up with scrapers, chisels, and putty knives. That sucked.

[Edited on August 31, 2009 at 9:21 AM. Reason : d]

8/31/2009 9:17:28 AM

Couple questions from someone motivated by this thread

I probably have a wood subfloor (crawl space below), isn't adding the cementboard and tilegoing to add about an inch of height. How do you work the transitions to carpet or hardwood. Also isn't that going to make the footgap at the bottom of te cabinets much smaller.

Any suggestions on cutting tools. I se cheapo ones at lowes.com is that good enough for a small kitchen job. 200 sqft.

8/31/2009 11:22:56 AM

Depending on the tile, adding thinset, backer board and tile added about 3/4" for us. We used wood step downs for the transitions that had a rounded surface, but I know they make tile pieces that are specifically for the transitions.

I don't know how much space you had under your cabinets, but 3/4" hasn't really made a noticeable difference for us. As for cutting tools, we were lucky enough that my father-in-law had a tile saw so that is what we used, but my brother used a hand scoring tool for his tile and a friend of mine rented a tile saw for his. I think a saw would be well worth it, even if you had to rent it because it makes the job much faster.

[Edited on August 31, 2009 at 11:30 AM. Reason : d]

8/31/2009 11:30:10 AM

wet tile saw is recommended, but i've used a diamond blade on an angle grinder.

you need ~1 1/8" subfloor for tile. i had 5/8" subfloor in a bathroom i redid, so i used 1/2" cement backer board.

as for the transition in the bathroom, i used a marble threshold that i bought from lowes (they cut it too)

8/31/2009 11:36:55 AM

Either rent or buy a wet tile saw.

I started out with a scoring cutter, and it works good for straight stuff once you get the hang of it, but be prepared to crack tiles along the way.

I eventually just broke down and bought a wet tile saw and its a godsend. You can make the hard cuts, and make them very precisely.

8/31/2009 3:50:03 PM

most rental places will have a wet tile saw

8/31/2009 4:03:51 PM

^just go ahead and buy one, renting them isn't as cheap as most people think because they often keep them for a few days

plus if you go ahead and buy one, you'll be more likely to do other tiling upgrades

oh, and lesson learned: protect your floors before you start moving shit around

8/31/2009 4:06:49 PM

You really want to do it right:

Clean the floor of all the glue with a grinder.

Put down a crack isolation membrane over the concrete.

Thinset the tile down.

This will ensure that your tile does not crack even if the concrete does.

8/31/2009 10:05:18 PM

I bought a cheapo wet saw from harbor freight, 7" blade i think. it actually worked good for my small job. i might do my kitchen one day down the road, and i will be reusing that saw. very pleased for the money. (of course i wouldn't even consider it if i were doing it for a living, but for a homeowner it is great, in my experience)

8/31/2009 10:43:34 PM

Wet saws are very expensive, just a decent commercial saw is >1K dollar bucks.

If you can find a $200 saw, go for it, a 7" should cut a 16" tile, which is more than most homeowners need. Keep your saw clean and keep the filter running. I wish I had a wet saw, Id tile my whole house if I did, and use floor warming - which by the way is bad ass.

8/31/2009 11:36:05 PM

^there's a bunch on amazon for under a hundred shipped. now they don't have pumps and shit, but for tiling my kitchen floor, they'll do better than $30/day to rent one I'm sure

9/1/2009 12:37:50 AM