The stick-on tiles were old, and many had broken or come up entirely. The room is also a mud room and has the utility closet, so it gets a lot of abuse. My husband & father-in-law weren't totally convinced the floor wasn't sagging, too.
As for me, the broken tiles and overall condition of the floor made it hard to clean, so it was in a perpetual state of grossness, which was annoying when I'd accidentally drop clean laundry on it, only to have the clean laundry pick up the dirt from the floor.
Enter my superhero of a husband.
Unlike me, he had both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off. What did he spend his vacation doing? Installing a new floor.
We had picked up some new stick-on tile on sale, and he & his dad had determined that the floor WAS solid, so it didn't need to be rebuilt. He printed out directions from This Old House and fearlessly jumped into the project. He hammered luaun into place to create a flat floor, and had to use some sort of leveling compound between the pieces. Did I mention the floor wasn't exactly level to start?
He then stuck the tiles on carefully, and had to cut the tiles at the edge of the room to match. I helped with this a little bit, and helped move around the washer & dryer (and, eventually the chest freezer) a bit too, but I was really not very useful. This was all Josh.
To finish it off, he installed quarter-round along the walls to make for a cleaner edge, and even figured a way to hide the cord for the newly-moved chest freezer, so we don't trip over it all the time. I don't have a totally-finished-room picture, but, believe me, I love it. It seems brighter, cleaner, and definitely less gross. As a bonus, we found that we could move the chest freezer next to the washer/dryer, so it's more accessible AND we can now hide the shelf full of tools & dog stuff in the closet rather than in the open.
Now to figure out what to do about the awesome stenciling. (do you see it?)
2 comments:
He is a level 7 handyman, +5 against floors.
As for the awesome stenciling, I would suggest either mounting frames around it so it appears to be artwork, or cutting it out of the door and hanging it in a fancier room of the house, where it deserves to be.
Beautiful!
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