Some years ago I had to have asbestos removed from the cellar of a house I was selling, and I had to have the air checked after the removal to measure the concentration of asbestos. It was not expensive to test, but the removal of asbestos was costly because it had to be done according to strict environmental protection standards and had to be disposed of properly. If you can install new flooring over the existing flooring that may or may not have asbestos, that's you best bet. As for your immediate worry, get your hands on a vacuum cleaner that comes equipped with a HEPA filter, and thoroughly vacuum the place. Alternatively, if you can stay someplace else for a few days while you have the place tested and, if necessary, professionally cleared of airborne asbestos, that would be the safest thing to do.

nurhacker- You're not going to have a problem just pulling off old baseboards, even if the floor gets scraped. The asbestos in the tiles is tightly embedded and you don't get significant fiber release unless you do something unwise like sand it. My main concern is that you are now mentioning putting ceramic tile over the asbestos tile. Some people do it, but it is not advisable in my opinion and that of others, because you may have problems later with the ceramic tiles coming loose. If you want to put down ceramic tiles, your best option is to nail or screw down underlayment first if the existing subfloor is wood. If the old tile is on concrete, then you would have to pay an abatement company to come in and do a safe removal, and that could be expensive. If the tiles are well-adhered to the floor, putting down seamless flooring on top is the most practical and inexpensive option.

Go to John Bridge's forum. You'll hear plenty. This is copied and pasted from my website: This is a subject that's very hotly debated within the industry. It seems every manufacturer has a thinset that they say can be used over resilient flooring (sheet vinyl) or vinyl tile. The problem with that is twofold. With all the different types of vinyl flooring out now, it's tough to know which ones can, and which ones can't be tiled over. Cushioned vinyl's are out. They can compress, causing voids under the tile, ultimately causing failure. Also, not all sheet vinyl is glued solid to the floor. A lot of times, vinyl installers will only glue the edges and spot glue in the center, and if you thinset the tile to it, it won't stay very long. In my opinion, vinyl tiles are out, as well, due to the fact that the thinset bond is only as good as the bond of the surface under it, and I've seen vinyl tiles ( especially peel and stick) let go way too easily. The same is also true for sheet vinyl. The second problem with tiling over vinyl is the underlayments used for vinyl installation. Normally, in woodframe construction, there are one of several underlayments used-- luan, 1/4" particle board, 1/4" plywood, and sometimes even MDF (medium density fiberboard). ANY of those in a tile subfloor is a guaranteed failure. 1/4" plywood has a nasty habit of delaminating (the layers come apart). Luan has the same problem, plus it can compress to 1/2 its original thickness from normal residential foot traffic (I've seen this happen). Particle board (as well as MDF), just from humidity, can expand enough to pop tile loose. Any of those can cause failure, and unless you pull the vinyl, you don't know for sure whether the vinyl installer just went over the existing subfloor, or added one of the underlayments mentioned. All in all, it's an extremely risky installation, and my question is why, when spending the money it costs for a tile installation, would you want to gamble on it? Here is a link that might be useful: My website's Flooring page

For me it's more I get visually bored after a while. However, moving things around is exhausting when you have as many books and bookcases as we do, so we only seem to do it every 10-15 yrs [smile]. We did a massive change of our MBR suite in 2015, but it needed it since it was a 1989 end-of-the-project-budget disaster. It was a "we can make do with this for a while" cheapo finishing after we originally bought the house in '89 and completely gutted it before moving in. Now it's the nicest room in the house, but it sure was bargain-basement ugly for almost 25 yrs. "Dated" would have been a kindness to apply to it back then! I would love to update my 1989 kitchen, but that would require a major investment in replacing cabinets, and my countertops from a 2003 update are still in flawless shape. Since the layout is still perfect, the frameless semi-custom cabs would cost 4x what we originally paid, to replace. Since the cabs are also in great shape, I have absolutely no justification for replacing anything but a dying appliance or two when it happens.