I would go with a 1.50/sf off white ceramic tile that has a little swirl to it to hide dirt. It's what we have now in our little cookie cutter home, and yes it's crazy to put white in kitchen. However, when it's clean, it looks fresh and the light tan variation going on does camoflauge well. You should be able to find this at HD or Lowes. Try a bargain floor store as well. Tell them situation and they'll give you a deal.

We just sold our home and the fixing up does eat up alot of money especially when you are not do it yourselfers, which we are NOT. Besides us being total goof balls with tools etc., we are very busy with work and kids too.

I feel your pain, but I think that a cheap ceramic will sell MUCH faster than a vinyl.

good luck,
bridget

Underlayment + thinset + tile will raise the floor too high, just checked with a spare floor tile I had hanging around in the basement.

bhunter@prudentialmanor.com

I second the use of peel & stick tile. With that many corners and such, labor will be fairly expensive, so you can save the most by doing it yourself. The adhesive-on-adhesive trick is new to me. I'd be concerned about what the two adhesives might do when mixed (if anything), but if it's been tried successfully....

Pick a patterned tile, preferably not of the "patent leather" variety and just go slow. You could even hire this out if you needed to; it's not highly-technical work, it just requires someone who will sweat the details. Be careful in pulling up the old floor that it does not have asbestos fibers in it; if it does, the best solution is to leave it where it is and use a self-leveler to flatten things out.

I just noticed some 18"x18" adhesive floor tiles in Lowes that maid me stop and look back. They were beautiful and inexpensive.

Can you level the current flooring with compound and do the stick&peel thing? It might be easier to cut the doors down a little rather than hassle with ripping up the old flooring and having to lay a new subfloor.

i saw a 68cent tile at HD today--very pretty--island something--i thought about you since it was such a good price.

Hopefully this is not too off topic...
Once peel and stick vinyl is laid, what happens when you decide you want tile, or wood or something? How hard is it to remove this stuff?
I'm wondering if this is something to use for a year or two till you can afford something better, or is it more mess/hassle than it's worth?
Thanks!

Rip up the old flooring and underlayment (if it was installed with one and install new underlayment and then the VCT tile or an inexpensive vinyl one.

You must keep VCT coated with an acrylic floor polish for a simple upkeep floor...but that is not a big deal. Start out with about 5 coats of polish initially and then renew the polish in the areas that get worn.

Since you're selling, you just have to make it functional and pretty...the new owners are going to tear it out anyway, so don't spend alot.

A professional could probably prepare your existing sheet vinyl and install cheap product over...risky, 'cause few 'new crop' installers have a clue how to do that.

Ceramic is not an option.

If you want it to look fancy beyond its price tag, could you add a border?

Can you cut stripes out of peel&stick tile, or wil the pieces be too small to stick well?

If so, perhaps do a "rug effect" rectangle of a slightly different color in the center of the room?

that would keep the price down, but make it look really nice. A lot of times (a lesson I learned from Martha Stewart Living magazine and my personal projects), it's the forethought and the small touches that make something look really fancy.

OK, we've settled on a "Cryntel" brand vinyl tile from Lowes, in something called "Italia Travertine" which doesn't look anything like travertine but is neutral variegated beige and reasonably attractive. Very similar to the HD Trafficmaster product (which didn't have any colors that worked well with the counters, else I'd have used it), much thicker and more rigid than most of the other vinyl tiles which were very thin and flexible. Some of them were downright floppy, like squares of regular sheet vinyl with adhesive on them! I did see those 18" ones at Lowes but they had a weird beveled edge that didn't look as nice and seemed like it would be less durable than the square edged ones.

breiaj, thank you VERY much for the extremely detailed instructions. We're worried about the time element (as in how much it will take) because we don't have a huge amount of it, but we're going to tackle it - well, in reality DH is tackling it, while I play "sergeant" and tell him what to do ;-) and take care of all the organizational stuff like making sure he has all the necessary supplies. (I have fibromyalgia, this kind of thing means mucho pain and I'm already in tough shape from overworking and overstressing.) I know exactly the floor adhesive you mean, I have seen it at HD. Having the tile a bit repositionable is a very very good thing!

The vinyl peeling commences this weekend. Our chances are extremely good that it does not contain asbestos, since it's less than 15 years old, so we are going to take the risk. The exterior doors cannot be trimmed. We're not ripping up the subfloor and putting down a new subfloor though; unlike non-craptastic-tract-house construction where there are 2 layers of plywood for the subfloor, ours has only one thicker one (we can see the edge of it at the basement stairs), so replacing the subfloor would be a MAJOR project! Many times I have wanted to do serious bodily harm to the builder for extreme corner-cutting.

roxyl, we're taking up the PO's super shiny fake PINK marble self-stick vinyl tile floor in one bathroom to put down nicer vinyl tile. We've been instructed that we need a wide, SHORT-handled wall-and-floor scraper, cheap work gloves (they will get all sticky and nasty), biggish old or throwaway pliers and a heat gun, which you can get at Home Depot or Lowes. Oh, and knee pads. Keeping the heat gun several inches away so you don't cause a fire, heat up a tile and pry/scrape it up with the floor scraper. Grab a corner with the pliers once you've got a couple inches up and peel it off. Drop it on some newspaper sticky side down. Go on to the next tile. Carefully warm any adhesive residue on the subfloor with the heat gun and scrape up as much as you can, and if you can't get it smooth use an adhesive remover.

Just wanted to give you an update - here's a picture of the bath we did as a practice run today. DH prepped the floor yesterday and we laid the vinyl tile today. Took us 7 hours to do 45sf of floor, whew! That tip about the adhesive allowed us to maintain some semblance of sanity, because otherwise we would have screwed up a LOT of placements.

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The bath looks great! Nice flooring choice. And thanks for the removal tips.
Keep us posted!

Johnmari--- Your bathroom really looks nice! I have this Cryntel Italia Travertine) tile picked out for our kitchen and I would love to know what you think several days after installation. I have Rolls Royce taste on a Pinto budget and we need to cover up white builders grade vinyl in our kitchen. I saw this tile in Lowe's and thought it really looked nice. However, I don't want it to look "cheesy" In our home the samples we have pick up the tan/gold colors already in place, but your pictures seem to be a bit more pink. Is that the case?

It's photographing pinkish but my 4yo camera tends to skew to the pink anyway. (I know I could adjust this with Photoshop but I'm too cheap to buy it and too lazy to go to all that futzing around for a snapshot anyway.) It's really a very neutral beige, and the blue wall paint (the gray-blue under the window is more accurate BTW, not the bright sky blue above the vanity) picks up some cool-toned streaks. We're putting this same tile in the kitchen and utility/powder room as well. I don't think it's a "high end" look but that wouldn't be appropriate for this house anyway (this is a "vinyl and formica" generic tract house), and it is attractive. I would bring home a box of the tiles and dry-lay them in your kitchen to get a better idea of how they'll look en masse - I would have done this if we were staying here and I had to live with it for more than a few months. One nice thing about it is that we didn't see any repeat in pattern, which was a big problem with the cheap tiles that were there before.

Thank you for your response. We too are in a mid-higher end track home. We are in the process of up grading many of the builders' standard features. We have white formica, white sheet vinyl and carpet throughout. Within the next two years, we will change the coutertops, backsplash and flooring. I am thinking this might be a quick fix until then for maybe about $400.00. We are going to start in the laundry room and see what we get. I am just trying to decide to I live with the worn out white vinyl that (perpetually looks dirty) and save our pennies for an upgraded option.

Thanks again!

Totally unsolicited advice, but unless $400 is chump change for you, I'd consider hanging onto your money and waiting until you do the counters and such, all in one fell swoop so you can coordinate everything. It seems a shame to go to all that work (and it is a nightmare amount of work to deal with that sheet vinyl if you can't just slap a layer of underlayment over it; we ended up renting an electric floor scraper) to potentially rip it all back up in two years because it doesn't match a countertop you fell in love with. Especially if you're considering going with an upgraded countertop like granite, I'm not sure the Cryntel tile would look quite up to snuff with real granite. Saving your pennies for real porcelain tile (which in itself can be had quite cheaply, it's the installation that costs) might be a better move with granite. I know you said you didn't want tile; if it's the coldness, check out the electric heating mats that go right into the thinset under the tile. Heavenly! I have them in my master bath. We're putting new laminate counters in as well (Wilsonart Milano Brown, which looks great with the plain builder-oak cabinets) and oil-rubbed bronze lighting, faucet and cabinet knobs I got cheap on eBay and clearance sales... I think it's going to be smashing when it's done. I needed a fairly light, warm-toned floor that wasn't white because the counters are quite dark. Aaaaanyway, blathering aside, JCPenney has washable area rugs you can put down to hide some of the icky usedta-be-white vinyl until you've saved up for your refurb. (Which is what we were doing, waiting and saving for a new kitchen, until the world went pear-shaped.)

Thank you for all your advice! That is exactly what I am looking for. Tonight we started in the laundry room just to see what it was all about. It is a completely separate room so we can add a transition strip in the doorway and be done with it if we don't like it. So far we like it and it coordinates with everything else in the kitchen. However, you hit the nail on the head when you said that it may not look right with upgraded countertops. I'll keep ya'll posted about the progress! Thanks again

I'm curious. What about moisture from mopping? Does anyone have trouble with moisture getting under the tiles since it isn't one continuous sheet? I'm considering this product for my kitchen. We have the tiles in our entry, and we absolutely love them.
Any feedback from use in the kitchen?

We used Trafficmaster in the kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom tiles have a grout edge around them, the kitchen tiles don't. I love my new floors.

Adhesive was used in both rooms and allowed to set before the tiles were laid. The bathroom was laid over the subfloor and the kitchen was put down over the old floor tiles that my contractor screwed down with drywall screws, leveled in places, primed in places then adhesive put down.
The flooring tiles I had on both floors was 38 years old. Some splitting of the tiles in the kitchen and a couple lifted up where the dogs water bowl had been for years and only the only thing wrong with the bathroom floor was the pattern was worn.

I have 3 animals with dark hair, you can't see anything on these floors. LOL I am amazed at what I sweep up. I can't believe my friend who was doing this for me initially wanted to install cheap white flimsy vinyl tiles from a local flooring store that would have shown all the dirt and would have been destroyed by my dog's nails. They were the type of tiles you would find in a dollar store. I had 4 sleepless nights worrying about that white vinyl then he noticed how reluctant I was and purchased these tiles instead. 100 percent relief!

I'll link to the bathroom floor first.

Johnmari, your floor looks great.

Anne

Here is a link that might be useful:

Small corner of the kitchen floor. My kitchen remodel is almost complete excpet for touch ups but so far I haven't taken a picture of the whole room and floor. I am waiting until everything is done.

I really love this floor in the kitchen and it doens't show any dirt or animal hair until I sweep it. LOL

Anne

Here is a link that might be useful:

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I found this thread! johnmari & cherryfizz, your floors look great! I have a few questions -- I hope I'm not hijacking too badly.

I've had 2 samples of the Cryntel tile on my floor for a few weeks. I'd like to put it in my utility room and my pantry over existing sheet vinyl. Both areas are one piece with no seams and no damage. Just ugly. I'm hoping to use the Cryntel over the old sheet vinyl -- and I'll definitely use breiaj's instructions for the extra adhesive. My question is how to prep. I've read several threads on this forum about vinyl tile over existing tile. If any of you did this, how did you prep?

The guy at lowe's said to just wash the old floor real well then peel & stick new. One thread here said to (1) put on 1-2 coats of encapsulator eg Ardex SD-F and (2) primer with a latex primer. Another thread just said to prime but didn't specify a kind of primer. We're diying this, so I'd love some advice -- and it can't be too detailed for me!!! Thanks so much in advance

Something bad happened that actually was a very, very good thing... After following breiaj's instructions to the letter, two of the floor tiles in the bathroom popped up a couple of days later and wouldn't stay stuck. When I pulled them up the rest of the way, I found a leak! If it hadn't been for those tiles unsticking, we wouldn't have found that leak until it did a LOT more damage - like made a big ole mess of the kitchen ceiling. So here's one way in which vinyl tile might actually be BETTER than sheet!

A few notes WRT breiaj's instructions... I admit to dropping back to $3.99 paintbrushes because they became unworkable so quickly - the glue would start to dry up in the bristles while we were working and it would become more like a paddle than a brush! We didn't have any problems with bristle loss. 2" flat-ended paintbrushes were just the right size, a wider brush seemed like it would save time but was really more awkward to work with, especially with cut pieces. Don't bother wearing rubber gloves in hopes of keeping your hands clean, they stick to the tile's adhesive and to the adhesive you're spreading on and just generally irritate the crap out of you. :-) The adhesive - Armstrong's anyway - is kind of hard on your hands though, and contrary to the label does not wash off with soap and water! We ended up using a "painter's wipes" product we had on hand to clean up our hands about every hour because we would get too sticky to work effectively, and our fingertips were pretty raw and sore afterward. Even though it costs a bit more it's a lot easier to work with the smaller containers of adhesive using this brush-on method, because the bucket gunks up something awful.

If you're laying more than about 100 square feet, seriously consider coughing up for the vinyl tile cutter (homedepot.com has one for about $50, or you can rent a superduper heavy-duty one for about the same for a weekend)... scoring and snapping with a utility knife sucks after a while, it's slow and hard on your hands. Make sure you have a comfortable utility knife no matter what though, and a LOT of blades. Stanley makes a really nice knife in their FatMax line, with a rubber-cushioned handle. A jamb or undercut saw ($15) makes dealing with those door jambs SO much easier than trying to cut the tile around them! We removed the baseboards; we were going to replace them with vinyl cove but the damn stuff just would not cooperate so we patched the baseboards with wood filler galore and put them back, and it looked SO much neater than butting the tiles up to the baseboards.

deeje, I've checked around with several manufacturers of vinyl tile and the biggest deal WRT moisture is not to slop around too much water when you mop - contrary to popular belief, you don't need a gallon bucket full of near-boiling water and some vile chemical to get a floor clean! Try a well-squeezed-out sponge or terrycloth/microfiber mop instead of a sopping string or rag mop instead. Those microfiber cleaning cloths fit on Swiffer handles really well, if like me you are too cheap to buy the Swiffer cloths. :-)

ctaylors6, the instructions in the Cryntel box agree with the Lowes guy - wash well-secured vinyl very well, rinse well, allow to dry thoroughly. I'd use something like TSP that would destroy any gloss on the existing floor. Our vinyl was trashed so we couldn't leave it, so I can't speak to the adhesive method on top of vinyl.

We still haven't gotten the kitchen floor laid down yet. We had to tear out some of the subfloor and replace it, and then do a lot of leveling and sanding on the rest, got diverted with a day of electrical work, and to top it all off DH has been sick as a dog. :-( Cross your fingers for this weekend!

Kitchen is finished. Two hard days of work by two people to get the 12x16 kitchen tiled. Took us a total of four days - one day to get the old vinyl scraped up with an electric floor scraper, one day of filling and sanding and patching, two days of tiling. Pretty much one day to lay the field and one to do the perimeter. There are imperfections in the setting, where some tiles drifted off by a half millimieter (even with that nifty adhesive method, which gives a little bit more fiddling time but after about 90 seconds that sucker is STUCK) but you have to look for them.

The Roberts Quick-Cut vinyl tile cutter broke before the end of the first day. I'll be contacting the place where I bought it for a replacement or refund.

Here are a couple of pictures. Please ignore the mess on the counters (and the pop-tarts LOL)!
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That kitchen is shaping up nicely, Mari!

Has anyone installed Cryntel Italia Travertine with grout? The Lowes grouted display looked exactly like stone. If you used grout, what surface did you install over, how long has it been down and how well is it holding up?

Thanks,
Pat

I think all this is so interesting and I've been looking for information on Cryntel!! There's not much out there. We're considering putting down peel and stick vinyl wood planks. They look really nice. I've heard great things about the same thing in the Novalis brand, but not much about Cryntel. Does anybody know anything about this product and how well it adheres, holds up,...etc. We found it at Lowes. Thanks for any information.