How to install peel and stick tile

Hello all! Hope your week is going SWELL. ;) I figured it was high time I finally gave the toot on how I installed the peel and stick tile in the laundry room.

First of all, let me say…I LOVE THIS STUFF!!

It’s rockin’ my world. I’m SO pleased with it.

And now I’m going to tell you how totally easy it was to install. It’s just silly really.

The peel and stick we used was the Novalis tile from Lowe’s:

You can find it online here. It’s $2 and change for each 18 by 18 tile – so I covered the whole floor in our laundry room for less than $60.

First up I had to figure out how I wanted the pattern to go. I played around with it for awhile, just laying the tiles out to see how they would look. I didn’t want to to a standard pattern with straight lines for a couple reasons – one I wanted it to have more movement to it, and two, I didn’t want to have straight lines I could mess up. ;)

I ended up with a version of a brick pattern – because the room isn’t very wide, I changed it up a bit. I stacked each one off to the side of the other, measuring three inches to the side each time.

You can see how they ended up here:

Does that make sense? I hope!

When I needed to cut a piece, I measured the size I needed, then used a level to make the straight line:

I read that you should use a razor to score and cut the tiles, but I used what I had on hand and it was WAY easier:

My trusty Open It scissors:

I use this thing all. the. time. LOVE it. It cut the tile like buttah. :)

I found them much easier to use than trying to cut straight and deep enough with a razor blade.

Each tile has a subtle flow to the design, so you’ll want to use the arrows on the back to keep the tiles consistent:

It’s so subtle I doubt you’d be able to tell if they went the wrong way, but I stuck with it just in case.

This stuff is CRAZY sticky. I know…duh. But really, it’s crazy. :)

I would peel the backing off in big pieces, then use little bits of the backing to grab the edges:

That way I could hold on to it without gluing my fingers together compromising the sticky.

I did mess up my pattern once and freaked out a bit -- but it came up fine with some muscle. (I had just laid it down a few minutes before so I think that helped.)

The directions say to use a weighted roller over the installed tiles, or if you don’t have one, to use a rolling pin. I used a rolling pin over half of it and quickly realized the pin was leaving burnish-type marks all over the tile. It’s not a big deal cause no one would notice it but me, but for the rest I just used my hands and walked on it, focusing on the edges. I figured my weight would be sufficient. ;)

Overall the tiles went together flush and you couldn’t see between them, but in a few spots you could see the plywood floor:

Those few spots drove me batty. :) So I went back to Lowe’s and got the grout (it’s grout just for this vinyl tile). I started schmearing between the tiles and then noticed it wasn’t going well.

The grout is almost too wet – so it didn’t lay in the grout lines well after I wiped it all down with a sponge. The grout would stay in some places and completely come up in others. It looked AWFUL.

I wiped it all out from between the tiles, about to give up on it, and then realized there was a teeny bit left between the tiles that looked great after it dried:

So I just started smooshing (like my technical terms?) the grout into the grooves with my finger. Then I used a rag to wipe it out, leaving the little bit at the bottom.

The pics above are the same spot before, during and after the grout. It finished it off beautifully!

Like I said, it’s holding up GREAT! A few weeks ago our humidifier in our HVAC system leaked everywhere (leaving lots of lovely water standing in the basement – yes, water is out to get us this year). The water got past the utility closet threshold to this flooring and as far as I can tell, it’s held up great. No buckling, no warping, nothing. I’m hoping the grout kept the water from getting underneath the tiles.

Best part is, if I do need to pull up one tile to replace it, I can. That is what I’m talkin’ about!

So there you go! Hope this all makes sense to those of you who are hoping to try this on your own! Lowe’s has a great selection of colors and designs, and the tiles come in 12 by 12 or this 18 by 18 size.

I love how real they look and how easy they are to clean!:

Now I just need to tackle every other surface in this room – after items 1-150 are completed on my list. ;)

A steamy giveaway!

Hello! I have some FUN for you today – this post is all about cleaning the floors!! WHOOOOO! I mean, really. Is there anything more exciting?

Just CALM DOWN. I know it’s awesome. (The real awesome comes later, hang in there.)

I’ve mentioned before that our previous floors were laminate. The fridge died, leaked water all over, and the laminate was toast. Fast forward a couple months later and a (very) helpful insurance check, and we ended up with hardwood floors.

Have I mentioned how much I love them? If I could hug floors, I would these. (I may have tried. It was not pretty.)

Our laminate floors were super shiny and IMPOSSIBLE to keep clean. I cannot express to you the agony of the cleaning (using a floor cleaner and one of those microfiber mops – which was not easy to push around) for a good hour, then not two minutes later someone would walk through in bare feet and I would be in a corner rocking and mumbling something about “floors…clean…help.”

It was intense. :)

After our new floors were installed I asked the Floor Guy how to clean them, and he recommended a steam mop. That made me giddy, cause the fine folks at Black and Decker had sent already me one to check out:

I actually got it before the floor debacle and tried it on the laminate and it cleaned them well, but did leave streaks. But ever.y.thing. I used left streaks – I found out later it was because of the build up of all of the cleaners I’ve used on them over the years. Nothing would clean them up.

I’m THRILLED to say the steam mop did stellar work on the new floors. I’m in heaven. No more mumbling.

I told you before that the new floors don’t show anything. We go in and out of this back door multiple times a day and bring in dirt, water and dust. I hadn’t cleaned our floors in over a week week, and this section is the worst it got:

Can’t see it? I know. Because they rock my world.

Here’s a closer look:

I know. Still not bad. Hate me.

One of the many things I love about this steam mop is that it’s ready to go in seconds – you just grab one of the (THREE!) pads they provide:

Just lay it face down on the floor and place the mop on top:

The steam mop has three different settings:

I of course picked the wood option, which I’ve noticed seems to “steam” the least of them – which is a good thing when dealing with wood.

I put water and just a bit of vinegar in the mop and then push it around a bit. It dries almost immediately – I mean supa fast:

OK, that may be the most underwhelming before and after of all time, cause the before looked pretty good.

 

I know. Rocks my world.

This is the area we walk through the most every day, and you can see there are NO STREAKS!:

Holy cats. Hallelujah.

Oh. happy. day.

Best part? It takes less than ten minutes to clean all of the floors in the family room and kitchen. That took at least an hour (and some sweat) before.

We get sun all day in the back of our house, and before it was like a big huge pointy finger, highlighting all of the smudges and dirt and footprints.

Now, it’s just…(pretty) floors:

I also use the steam mop on our vinyl, tile and the peel and stick floors in the laundry room – every type of flooring cleans up great!

The AWESOME folks at Black and Decker are offering one of these beauties to one of you as well!:

That would be a $120 value. Told ya – WHOOHOO!!

Here’s how to enter to win a Black and Decker steam mop:

1. Leave a comment here. Tell us the hardest spot to keep clean in your house.

2. “Like” the Black and Decker Facebook page here. Come back and let us know you did.

Remember if you comment anonymously or you have a private blog, please include your email address in each entry, and spell it out with “at” and “dot” to avoid any spammy emails coming your way.

This giveaway is only open to US residents only. It will be open till next Monday, November 7th at noon EST. (So you have plenty of time to enter!)

Happy cleaning! :)

Our “new” house!

Well, they are DONE! The floors are down, sanded and stained. It took the guys yesterday and today to get the quarter round down and painted, and then the furniture back in – so I’ve been smiling and fluffing and giddy all evening. ;)

The house is still (mostly) a mess – but I’ve been trying to get the layer of dust out of a couple rooms to show you the results!

I mentioned before that we went with hardwoods finished on site instead of prefinished. (You can go here to see how we came to that decision.) Remember the dark prefinished sample I fell in love with?:

Well, here’s how ours turned out (same spot):

Yes. I went dark. Not crazy dark. Just dark. er. ish.

;)

The stain color is from Minwax and it’s called Jacobean:

Originally we were going with a walnut, but then the flooring guy said the Jacobean was just a tad deeper and more brown. Because our laminate had a reddish tone that I wasn’t crazy about anymore, I wanted to go as brown as possible.

I know many of you warned about the dark floors showing everything, and believe me I get you. Our laminate floors weren’t super dark, but dark enough. Every single crumb and waft of cat hair showed, so I’m used to it.

What always bugged me more about our laminate was how shiny they were – it looked GREAT when they were clean, but as soon as someone walked across them with bare feet, they were toast.

The crumbs I can deal with –  it was the footprints and smudges that drove me batty! I wanted dark floors, so I knew just what to do to keep the floors from showing everything. I talked to Floor Guy, and we went with a satin polyurethane instead of a gloss:

And it worked like a CHARM!! It’s crazy awesome – you can’t see anything on these floors!

I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me after trying to keep that blasted laminate clean. ;)

It was pouring rain today, so the guys were in and out over and over to bring in the furniture – with wet boots. (They took great care to cover their shoes up till then – there was no way around it when they brought in furniture.) Two guys with wet shoes walked through that spot up there in the pic at least five times, and that’s how it looks. I didn’t even wipe it down.

I'M SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

A few of you asked about the baseboards during installation, and we did not remove them. The flooring was placed right up against them and then the quarter round covered any gaps:

I know some don’t use quarter round, but in order to do that you’d have to take up all of the baseboards, then reinstall them afterwards.

Um...I had enough of a mess on my hands. ;) I like both looks, with or without the quarter round. But I have to say -- when they installed and painted ours, they made the already awesome floors look stunning. It’s the whole contrast thing for me I’m sure. :)

And many of you were passionate about the quarter round matching the baseboards – I SO agree! I didn’t think of that when our laminate was installed and it matched the floors. It made our already wimpy baseboards look even smaller. I’m SO thrilled to have all white!

I love how the boards each have their own natural characteristics. It looks SO LOVELY. I love this board with the little worm holes:

Each piece stained so differently and it gives our house so much character. Some boards are light, some are dark. Some are super smooth, some have some texture. I am SO thrilled with how it turned out. Beyond thrilled. Ecstatic. :)

So how about some before and afters?!

Here’s the living room before:

And now, with the floors down:

Of course it was raining and cloudy and perfectly awful picture-taking weather today, so my pictures aren’t great. It was hard to get a decent shot of everything.

The transformation in the family room and kitchen isn’t as dramatic, because the laminate was down before:

But you can see all the character in the floors now:

The laminate used to stop by our basement steps, and now that everything is hardwood, it makes our main level feet HUGE:

It’s so funny – we feel like we have a brand new house, but it also feels like it’s been like this forever. I don’t even remember the carpet and laminate, already. Well, I do…but the cherry and animal and Christmas tree stains on the carpet and the dirty laminate are oh so easy to put out of my mind. :)

The change has so many new projects running through my head now too – it’s like my mojo was given a jolt! I’ve already completed a few (small) projects and have a few (HUGE) projects in mind.

Now I hope to get some Halloween decor up (the Bub has been SO patient) and then get our house fallified as well. I’ve been holding out on any decor because of this process. I’ll show you more of the floors and my latest projects soon – hopefully with better light!

Thanks for coming along with us during this project!! Everyone told me and I will say it – (now) I don’t mind at all that the old fridge pooped out on us and leaked everywhere. :) NOW I can say that. Seven weeks later. ;)

Days One and Two: Flooring Update!

Well hey there! I’m THRILLED to announce that the great floor install has begun!! Wait -- that should probably be The Great Floor Install. It deserves caps cause I’ve been been waiting for this for a loooong time. (Six weeks and three days. But who’s counting?)

;)

The process started bright and early Tuesday morning – the handymen came to pull up all of the carpet and laminate. But first all of the furniture had to be moved out! Initially we were going to try to move furniture back and forth (from the front of the house to the back) but I’m SO glad we didn’t mess with that. It would have been a total hassle, and I’m not even sure we would have had room for all of the furniture in one place.

By the way – before this I didn’t think we had much furniture. We do. Have much furniture.

While the guys moved furniture and pulled up flooring, I took all of the little stuff – lamps, baskets, knick knacks, pillows -- down to the basement.

Can I get a hollaaaaa for basements? I don’t know what we’d do without ours. Double thump to the chest at it.

After everything was out, the flooring guys got going pretty quick – they started with the front of the house and moved back. I was shocked at how fast the floors went down – it’s just the measuring and cutting that takes time.

By the end of day one, the dining and living room were DONE!:

I am SO IN LOVE!!! Even in the natural color – I. am. giddy.

I cannot even express to you the difference it’s already made in our house! It feels HUGE! I know the whole no furniture thing plays a teensy roll in that, but STILL. :)

They worked their tails off today, and would have gotten all of the floors down, but we had some little problems to work around in the family room and kitchen.

Thousands of them:

See that line of itty bitty staples? When we had the laminate installed years ago, the installers had to put down a layer of plywood to even out the floors. The plywood came up easy – the staples did not.

It seems like there are (pinky to mouth) meeeellions of them.

So the guys have to pound down each and every one before they can install over them – it took hours this morning. Tomorrow they will finish that up and finish the floors!

We were told the whole process would be done by this Friday, and HA! that makes me laugh. ;) It will be next Tuesday at the earliest, unless things go magically fast over the next few days. I’m going to plan for mid-next week and be pleasantly surprised if it’s finished up earlier.

The finished on site process obviously takes much longer than a prefinished or engineered wood would take. With either of those, they would go down and then be done. The version we chose is installed, spots are filled, the floors are sanded, then stained and finally coats of poly are put over all of it.

So a one or two day process for prefinished will be at least five for the finished on site.

There is one BIG reason that we went this route. I know myself. :)

The little crevices in the prefinished flooring would have driven me nutty:

Quite a few of you mentioned this (actually, a TON of you) when I asked about the floors on this post. You all were so helpful!!

Many mentioned how it drives you MAD when you have to vacuum out those little cracks. I know it would put me over the edge. Really. You just have to know what makes you tick. Or itch, in this instance. ;)

I had hoped to do the wider boards – maybe four inches wide. But the contractor and installer both explained that the wider the boards, the more the chance of cupping. Indiana weather isn’t exactly what I’d call stable – we get freezing cold, super hot, insane humidity and major dry spells – all within days of each other sometimes. (You think I kid.)

The extremes in weather are a great recipe for cupping floors. The thinner the width of the board, the less chance of that happening:

Ours are 3 1/4 inch wide I believe? They are also 3/4 inch thick (top to bottom)– so there will be plenty of chances to sand them down and restain in the future – which is another reason for this method. They should (please Lord) last forever.

That’s also the reason we didn’t go with the hand scraped look – we were told those can be hard to sand down and stain because of the texture. I’m not sure if that’s 100 percent true, but it makes sense. They’d have to be sanded down to almost flat if they were going to be restained.

I decided to go basic and what I hope is timeless – flat, crevice-free wood floors. ;) I can already tell little bumps and nicks aren’t going to bother me – scratches yes (I may cry the first time!!), but the rest will give them character. :)

I told myself I wouldn’t work on any projects this week because the house is such a mess – but that lasted all of ten minutes. I just can’t sit around watching – I have to do something!

One of my dirty little secrets was revealed when they moved the furniture out – I had even forgotten about it!:

Ha!! I never painted or finished the molding when I did this project a couple years ago.  (I posted a how-to video in this post!) I always meant to go back and do it, but the sofa hasn’t moved in years. ;)

So I’ve been working on that…painting and installing the additional boxes. And then because they finished the floors in the office:

I took that opportunity to finish up the baseboards in there. I’ve been waiting forEVA to do this and I’m SO thrilled!! When I installed the B and B in there, I put the mdf right over the top of the baseboards:

It didn’t really bother me – but I knew when the floors were installed that I could fix this, and I’m SO happy with how it turned out!

One of my lovely readers mentioned that they just installed baseboards right over the top of the whole thing – and I thought that was brilliant.

Because our old baseboards were a bit thinner than the mdf I used on the walls, I used a bunch of paint sticks and nailed them over the old baseboards:

I offered to pay for them, but Paint Guy at Home Depot told me to take what I needed – rock on Paint Guy!!

Doing this prevented the bottom part of the new baseboards from caving in when I nailed them in – does that make sense? Otherwise the bottom part would have been against the old baseboards and the top part would have been sticking out – it gave them an even surface to lay on.

It worked like a charm!:

Sorry for the night pic! I got this done late!

Here’s a before and after to see how looks:

 

OH MY I am so happy to have this done! After the floors are stained the quarter round will go down, completing the baseboards.

Goodbye shorties – helloooo tall baseboards!

You could easily do this over carpet as well…I plan to. :)

So, that’s the update on our new floors – it’s not the easiest route but I think it will be the best one for us. So far I’m dealing pretty well with the mess. I’m just so excited about everything I don’t even care!

I won’t have any reveals to show off till next week -- I’ll talk more about our stain color then. (Cause I’m still deciding!)

So…can you see the potential? I think it’s going to be gorgeous!!

Don’t get me started

Well, it looks like we will get our new floors next week!! They will be finished on site – meaning the wood will be nailed down, then sanded, then stained. I’m so excited…just not excited about the process. It’s going to take a week total, and we’ll have to be out of the house quite a bit.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with the cats, the dog, the fish or the humans. ;) I’ll just take it day by day and expect a total mess. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Stop laughing. :)

When we had our laminate installed (almost) five years ago, I had them put it through to the mud/laundry room:

But I didn’t have it put under the washer and dryer just in case we ever had water issues. HA! Little did I know the refrigerator would be the culprit.

And if we did have issues with the washer, I’m sure it would have extended out beyond that little transition piece. ;) Whatever. I was trying.

We have learned throughout the years that laminate in the mud room (right off the garage) was not the best choice. The laminate was still OK – no buckling – but was so tired of worrying about our wet boots in the winter.

So with the new floors coming,  my plan was to pull up the laminate, and eventually put a tile or a peel and stick tile down instead. I could have done it any time – but I was hoping to get it done before the floors were put in.

And time is dwindling. :)

The other day, as I was walking to the garage to grab some spray paint, a few thoughts ran through my head:

“Hmmm…I wonder how hard it would be to just pull up this laminate super quick.”

“No. Sarah. Keep walking.”

“But really, now hard could it be? It could be fun.”

“FUN? Whatareyoucrazywoman?”

“I’m gonna try it.”

“Spray. Paint.”

“Oh come on…just pull up one piece and see what happens.”

Famous last words. You can guess which side won out.

I started with the transition piece:

 

And my first surprise came. :) The installers used liquid nails to glue down that piece.

And a few others. I actually like the vinyl we had put down when we built the house, so I was hoping to just keep that for a while till I figured out what I wanted to do with the floor.

The glue threw a bit of a wrench in that. But I figured I could get it off.

I moved on to pulling up the laminate:

It took some muscle and a really good pry bar. It was a bit difficult to get the first piece out, but after that it was like butta:

But I noticed something else as I removed the laminate. The underlayment was cut into pieces. I have no idea why.

And I’m not sure why it seems like they put a full piece down, then used a razor to cut it into pieces.

And I’m not sure why they decided to do that right over the perfectly good vinyl:

Cutting a gash in it the length of the room. I mean, I guess they didn’t think we’d ever pull up the laminate and want vinyl again? I don’t know.

But it threw another wrench in my plan.

The vinyl wasn’t glued down, for the most part, so I started pulling it up:

I saw the wood flooring, and though maybe I could just paint it in the meantime. How fun would that be?!

SO fun. But it wasn’t happening:

That vinyl glue is SERIOUS stuff. Insane. Like, they could glue buildings together with it.

I gave up after one piece. There was much sweating. And maybe some pulled muscles. And maybe a swear word.

See that spot by the door? I was right – water had been seeping under the laminate for years. It wasn’t moldy, thank goodness.

Sooo…my simple walk through the laundry room for spray paint turned into a distress call to our handyman. ;) He is AWESOME and was able to come out the next day and lay down new plywood (or whatever that stuff is). I could have left it as is for a while, but that splintery stuff made me nervous with the Bub and the dog.

Once we had decent floors again, I took a trip to Lowe’s to see what our options were. And I found the PERFECT solution.

It’s called Novalis peel and stick tile -- the one I picked out is the copper slate finish:

You can find it online here. It’s 18 by 18 inches and 18 by 18 inches of AWESOME. I am so giddy about this stuff!! And it’s only $2 a tile – crazy good for such a great look!

The back is sticky, so you peel the backing off and stick it to the floor. That’s it:

OK, well not that’s it – but really, it was SO EASY to install. It took quite a few cuts, but even those were easy. It’s vinyl, but it’s way thicker than vinyl on the roll. And it’s hard – each piece is really sturdy.

Our handyman showed me how to disconnect the washer and dryer, so I was able to get it down throughout the whole space. I started it late Saturday night and finished up Sunday – total it took about two hours. And that’s me doing it alone – it would go so fast with two or more!

After I was done, I called the hubs in to see it. He loved it too, and then asked why we don’t just put it throughout the bottom floor instead of the hardwoods.

Uh…

Crickets.

I got nothin’.

It looks THAT good:

You would never know it wasn’t real tile, right?

You can even grout it – which I did…kinda. I’ll show you the whole how-to in an upcoming post.

For now, it’s kicked off a mini redo of the laundry room. And I was just trying to get some spray paint!! People…THAT is how I roll.

And yes, my husband is ahhhhmazing to put up with me.

;)

I’ve needed to finish off the beadboard in this space for years now. I had the handyman take off the remaining baseboards while he had the washer and dryer pulled out. So the next step is to finish up the beadboard, paint it, repaint the existing beadboard, and paint the room. Oh, and reinstall baseboards. And add some crown molding.

(Spray. paint.)

I’m thinking of pulling a color out of the floor for the walls – I’m SO excited about the potential for this space! My plan for about a year now has been to move the washer and dryer out of this room, but that’s on the back burner for sure now. Moving the water, electricity and the gas line for the dryer is not going to be cheap.

So for now, the floors are making this room feel completely new and shiny!:

I can’t wait to get started on the other stuff. I just have a few other rooms to finish up first. ;)

Have you tried this peel and stick goodness? One of my BFFs actually has this exact tile in her mud room and I’ve loved it for years. I didn’t think there was any way it would still be available, but there it was! She said she loves it so much, she would put it throughout her kitchen in a heartbeat.

I’ve also seen the peel and stick “hardwood” floors – they look surprisingly real too. I know many of you have used that and love it!

So…that’s how a trip to the garage turned into a complete room redo. Eventually. At least we’re not walking on splinters. :)