Lance and I have discussed on several occasions replacing our vinyl flooring in the bathrooms, laundry room and kitchen pretty much ever since we moved into our house. It hasn't really been on the top of our "to do" list until I stumbled upon an impassable deal. You see, it was a late night...close to midnight...when I felt like I should get on Home Depot's website and see what they had in various flooring options. When I began my search on tile, I clicked several options narrowing my search down to 16x16 residential tiles then sorted my options from lowest price to highest price and BAM! Up popped this 16x16 tile for 8 cents/sqft.!!! 8 CENTS!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. The tile wasn't available online, but only in stores so I printed the page and decided to go in first thing in the morning. When I got there the next morning a very friendly associate helped me locate the tile only to find it was actually 77 cents/sqft. That was quite a huge price jump in comparison for the amount of tile I would need...around 500/sqft. So the associate paged the manager over. The manager couldn't believe her eyes either when she saw my computer print out. She was very apologetic but said there was no way she could possibly sell me the tile for 8 cents. I figured as much before I even went to the store, but I was still wondering if they would work me out some kind of deal. So I asked just that, "What can you sell it to me for?" I was hoping at least half the original price...fingers crossed... "I can sell it to you for half price," she said. WAHOOOO!!! Happy day! "I'll take it!" So I bought the 30 cases we would need to do all the areas of tile we wanted. What would have originally cost over $400 dollars cost half as much! My dad and brother drove down to help me load it up and now it's sitting in the garage. But....
This is what I've been up to lately...
I consider myself to be quite the handy lady. I took the toilet out all by myself and by some miracle was able to get it into the bathtub without making too much of a mess of things (thanks for the newspaper in the tub for the waxy toilet ring thing, dad). I then proceeded to take up the base board and was able to salvage all of the pieces except one short piece that I started with before I knew all the tricks to cutting the caulk and being more patient with my prying. I then started pulling up the vinyl. Which...I tell you what...is a work out! I had a handy pole scraper thing my dad lent me which helped immensely, but the true trick is...after the vinyl is up there's a papery backing that is glued to the floor. If you soak it in water and let it sit for about 5 minutes, it'll peel right up with the scraper.
So...after that was done....my dad and hubby tiled!
Now we just need to grout. We were going to do it this weekend, but didn't get around to it. I'm thinking it can't be that hard to grout so I might give it a try while Lance is gone this week. :)
We plan on doing the master bathroom, laundry room, then we are going from the front entry of the house and cutting the carpet out of the heavy traffic area all the way to the kitchen and tiling all that as well. I can't wait for it to be finished. It's going to look so great! After all the tiling is done, we'll start looking into carpeting options. :) Hurray for a much needed house face lift!!! Anyway, that's what I've been up to. More of my home makeover project posts to come. :)
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