Peel and Stick Tiles

We have been using peel and stick vinyl tiles our entire 40 years of marriage.  We like them.  Our last home had ceramic tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen.  Guess what?  We tore them up and put down vinyl floors.

Vinyl flooring is warmer on your feet and I am the barefoot queen.  It’s also less likely that what you drop will break.  Ceramic and other hard surface tiles are just that…hard!  They are bad for your feet.  When I go barefooted on a cold, hard, tile floor, I get cramps in my feet.  I don’t experience that with vinyl flooring.

Enough of that.  Yesterday, we had a little time in the afternoon to actually lay the tile in the laundry room.  My husband likes to make things last as long as possible, so he began by applying a glue to the wood flooring before I laid the tiles.

You need only a small amount of the glue on the floor.  We just use it to add a little extra sticking power to the peel and stick tiles.  That is the same container of glue that we used at our last home to install  kitchen, three bathrooms, and laundry room floors.  It will last a lifetime, I think.

The glue we used is Premium Tile Adhesive for vinyl composition tile (VCT) by Armstrong.  The directions said to use a smooth edged trowel, but he used the smallest serrated edge.

Applying it to the floor took about 10-15 minutes.  Then we had to wait 30 minutes for it to dry to a tacky state.

Some people have ideas about what is the ‘correct’ place or way to begin the floor.  There are actually a lot of ways to decide where to start.  Our floor was 8’4″ from back door to the hallway door.  Since we didn’t want 2″ pieces of tile on each end, we opted to begin at the hallway door and tile across to the back door leaving 4″ cuts at that edge.  Crosswise didn’t matter since both sides will be underneath either the washer and dryer, or the cabinets.

We are happy with the look and color.  Next step, baseboards and corner moldings.

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A Little Clean Up

Recently, we made a trip to the dump.  We had a bit of wood, flooring, and some other items that needed removal from the yard!  It was beginning to look trashy out there.

The City of Phoenix allows one free trip to the dump each month.  It’s actually a transfer station, not a dump.

The transfer station is large and actually very nice.  Can you say that about a dump?  They have great signage placed for where to deliver your items.  Regular trash trucks come to the same facility and have their own area. 

Our truck was full.  We were sent to bay 11.  Each bay handles two customers.  The place was very busy.

It felt good to get rid of those old cabinets from the laundry room and garage.  Some old plastic lawn furniture went, too.

Tractors are on the move throughout the place keeping all the trash picked up and out of the way for the next customer.

It was unlike any dump I had ever been to, and I was impressed.  Now that we cleaned up our place a little, it’s time to get back to work!

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Floor Prep

I promised more pictures on the progress of the laundry room floor.  Here they are!  As it turned out, the only damage to the floor was where water had leaked in under the door.  The door is relatively new, so we are assuming it has been replaced. Obviously, the floor was never repaired until now.

After my husband cut out the rotten wood areas, he cut wood pieces to fit them and attached them securely.  He also screwed down any loose floor boards that were squeaking.

Then he filled all dents, holes, and cracks with wood filler and sanded the floor when it dried.  I think he did this about three times.  This is how the floor looks today.

We are spending this weekend with our grandchildren, so our project must wait a little bit.  We don’t mind.  Just like dust, it will be there ‘tomorrow’.

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Bare Feet

Well, one thing I like about living in a warmer climate is that I don’t have to wear shoes!  🙂 

We have been very busy.  Our move is complete and escrow has closed on our home up north.  We are now full time residents in what my friend told me is called The Valley of the Sun!

My husband is still working on the laundry room.  It may appear that he is slow, but he is not.  Remember, we have had a lot of other activities competing with our remodeling.

He cut out the rotten wood of the floor at the door corners.  He also has repaired it and prepped the floor.  I’ll post pictures of that tomorrow.

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Ceiling Fan Install

During a recent afternoon, we decided to install one of our new ceiling fans.  There is not much lighting around the house, so this would be a big help.  Choosing the living room to begin with, we set out the parts and dug in.

Assembling all the parts.

While my husband took care of the electrical part at the ceiling level, I assembled the fan blades at the floor level, which is also the level from which I supervised.

Securely attached to the ceiling.

My husband likes to over build things.  It’s a ‘good thing’ in my opinion.  It may take longer or cost more in the long run, but things seldom, if ever, need repair or replacing.

Of course it works!  I never had a doubt that it would.  Good job, honey.

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Laundry Continues…

We have taken a few breaks from the laundry room work.  We had to spend a few days up north packing and moving more ‘stuff’ down here.  That lead to finding places to put everything.  Plus, add to that a need for diversion now and then, we have done other projects as a break.

Today, my husband decided to remove the laundry room floor all the way down to the original plywood flooring.  I already blogged about him removing the vinyl wood looking flooring.  That was easy. You can read about it in my post A Trip to IKEA. Below that flooring was vinyl tile and below that was the original linoleum flooring from when the home was built in 1985. Now THAT is not so easy.  He told me it is just like peeling the label off of a bottle.  LOL.  He has great patience.

Water damage at door corners.

It appears that the back door leaked and rainwater came in under the door multiple times.  This would have happened before there was ever an awning like the one now.

The wood is very rotten at the corners of the door.

Husband is hoping the damage is not extensive and that he can fix it easily.  We shall see, as the floor continues to come off.

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Cabinets

We managed to get one wall of cabinets installed.  My husband didn’t like the design IKEA uses for hanging their cabinets, but he does like how easily they assemble.  In a stick built home they use 2×4’s which would work well for this system.  We are remodeling a manufactured home, however, and who knows what is behind that drywall?  We are hoping 2×4’s, but what if they are 1×4’s?

Anyway, he attached the metal strip to the wall anchored in what we hope are strong boards.  Then we attached the cabinets to the metal strip.  The doors were added next.

Then we left to go pack some more of our belongings to transport to our new home.  We will continue on with our remodel after we get back south.

It’s cold up here folks.

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Side Projects

When we work on a project around the house, occasionally other projects result.  I should say frequently other projects result.  This house remodel is no exception.

While checking the wiring for the new dryer in our laundry room, my husband discovered this unique wiring job.  The ground wire was just hanging there, under the plate, unattached to anything.

It was a three connection plug with a four wire connection.  They just left that one wire hanging there.  My new dryer requires all four wires, so he was actually happy to see this.

He checks everything before he just connects to it.  He is rewiring all switches and plugs.  He has done this in every home we have ever purchased.

For ten years I have missed this ‘friend’.  I love my swing-a-way can opener.  I am so happy to have the use of it once again.  My last kitchen had no place to hang it. I hope there is a place to hang it when we remodel the kitchen.

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Unexpected Change!

After setting out some of the wood flooring in the laundry room to see how it looked with the color Haze, we decided we didn’t care for it so much.  What?  Isn’t it amazing how different a larger area of a color can be so different from those puny little paint chips they give you?  I had a few other paint chips that I had picked up during one of our MANY trips to Home Depot.  They were ones I had chosen to consider for the color in the bathrooms.

Here is what the new laminate flooring looks like.

One was called Pecan Sandie.  It was a larger paint swatch from Behr’s color wall.  We thought about it while we had a snack.  It’s funny how food always helps us to think more clearly.  I guess we needed some brain fuel.  The verdict is that Pecan Sandie looks great with the wood flooring and also the tiles that we bought for the laundry room and bathrooms.

Another trip to Home Depot!  I think we’ve been there every day for the past two weeks!  Lowe’s has also been hit a few times.

Pecan Sandie is similar to Haze, but a little darker shade.

Painting, a second time, has been completed in the laundry room and we are now assembling the cabinets from IKEA.  They are very easy to assemble.

We had never been to IKEA until last Fall when our GA friends took us there for a nice outing.  We were there two and a half hours and still didn’t see the whole store.  Our friends remodeled their kitchen a couple of years ago using cabinets from IKEA and we were impressed with many of the features.

Perhaps tomorrow we will get them installed in the laundry room.  We’ll have to wait and see what the day brings.

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