This time last week, we were eagerly preparing to begin the laborious task of floor prep for our new tile. Here’s the recap of what we accomplished through Sunday:
renting storage unit to store garage things and furniture so that we have room for 1850 square feet of 6 x 36 wood look porcelain tile coming on 4 pallets (and can move furniture out in sections to prep floors and lay tile) (did this Tues)
moving garage things and furniture to said storage unit (Wed-Thurs)
ripping up carpet, carpet pads, tack strips and hauling to curb for pick up (Thurs-Fri)
renting PRO stripper from Big Orange and scraping up vinyl tiles, glue, and paint and hauling to curb for pick up (Sat)
purchasing DITRA
purchasing DITRAset and other supplies as needed (trowels, etc.)
Note that the HD PRO stripper we rented did not get up the glue and paint as hoped (and advertised…MAJOR WOMP WOMP), so we applied natural, nontoxic solvents and even resorted to Goo Gone, plus a lot of elbow grease, to try to get the sticky up, but to no avail. Oh sure, we knew the 20 year old vinyl tile and its adhesive would be a chore to remove, but man-oh-man. Arduous doesn’t even begin to describe it. The stripper did get some of the glue up, but whoever originally installed the vinyl tile before applied so much glue that the stripper couldn’t get deep enough in the sticky mire to strip down to the concrete.
The glue was also pulling up chunks of concrete with it, so we are wondering if whoever did the concrete slab didn’t use enough water, resulting in a crumbly crust, which we like on some things (apple crisp?) but not on our foundation. Good thing we were already planning on patching holes and flashing the floor. As it stands right now, our house is officially a giant fly trap. Seriously. Stand in one place for more than 1 second and your shoes are stuck fast. Try to walk, and you’ll walk out of your stuck shoes onto the most disgusting flooring ever. If you are building or remodeling your own home, please do not use horrible products like vinyl and vinyl adhesive in your house if at all possible. Bad all around. At least ours didn’t contain asbestos…and it was picked up within 2 hours of being hauled to the curb….

You may be wondering why we decided to get rid of these super stuck floors in the first place if they were so “well done” initially. If we had sheet vinyl, maybe we would have kept it as is for a longer time and eventually tiled over it. However, these delaminating vinyl tiles were installed with little faux grout lines over a slab that clearly has significant enough hills and valleys to merit concern about tiling over without flattening. Dirt collects in the faux grout lines that then sticks to the adhesive spread underneath, rendering it impossible to vacuum, sweep, mop, etc., and the hills and valleys mean that eventually any tile we would install over it would buckle and crack.
In DIY land, Big Orange and Big Blue are helpful to a certain extent, but they have their limitations. We know there are more potent (and also flammable, noxious) solvents for remediating our sticky situation, but we were trying to avoid this at all costs. When seeking other possible methods, the flooring “specialist” with whom we spoke at Big Blue wondered (a) why we didn’t want to keep the vinyl tile (erm, what tha what?) and (b) now that we had already stripped the tile, why didn’t we just tile over the adhesive despite the hills and valleys (there. are. no. words.). This goes against EVERY recommendation from tile installation experts and every instinct I have, based on the tiling I’ve done in the past. I’m not one to call people dolts, and we normally love Lowe’s. BUT COME ON, PEOPLE. Clearly this guy knows zilch about tile installation and should not be in charge of the flooring department. We walked away empty-handed and fairly disgruntled, especially because he shouted, rather aggressively, “Don’t walk away from me,” as we were walking away. He was rude, patronizing, unknowledgeable, and a bully, at best. In sharp contrast, the flooring lady at Big Orange recommended using a concrete grinder with a wheel of blades designed to scrape up the adhesive and paint after she and her husband ran into the same issue in their home. He painstakingly ground away at the gunk from 3 layers of vinyl (Three! The Horror!) using a handheld angle grinder on their own concrete slab and did such a good job that they were able to polish the concrete. Pretty amazing. Even though she was delivering somewhat discouraging news about what it would take to solve our problem, her willingness to help and gracious, understanding attitude scored Home Depot a purchase of an angle grinder and coating removal wheel of terror.

Now that we are going to be meticulously grinding away the grime in each room, I’ve had to make a more detailed plan of attack. The layout of our home is just open and juuuuust closed enough to be problematic for floor work in sections in the limited time we have together after work while still having access to an entry/exit, a bathroom, and room for furniture that we cannot store in the interim anywhere else because we refuse to pay to move it AGAIN {read: baby grand}. Here’s the breakdown of what’s next on the 40 Days to the Floors We Love list:
- Mon: Amy paints guest hall (GH), laundry room (LAR), and master hall (MH) while Chris takes out shoe mouldings + baseboards (we didn’t have time to do this as planned prior to stripping)
- Tues: Amy paints second coat in BR2 and BR3 while Chris grinds LAR + MH
- Wed: Amy patches LAR concrete while Chris grinds BR2 + BR3 + GH
- Thurs: Amy patches BR2 + BR3 + GH concrete while Chris grinds foyer (F) and living room (LR)
- Fri: Flash BR2 + BR3 + GH; demo fireplace tile
- Sat: Amy patches F + LR concrete while Chris grinds kitchen (K) and dining room (DR)
- Sun: A + C go to tile school at HD (refresher for Amy, first time for Chris)
- Mon: Flash F + LR (except for study nook = path to backdoor from MBR)
- Tues: Move life to guest suite, clear MBR
- Wed: Amy patches K + DR concrete while Chris grinds MBR
- Thurs: Patch MBR + MH concrete
- Fri: Flash MBR + MH
- Sat: Flash DR + Study Nook of LR
- Sun: Rest
- Mon: Ditra LAR + MBR + M. Hall
- Tues: Mark + Dry-fit LR Tile
- Wed: Mark + Tile Laundry
- Thurs: Mark + Tile MBR
- Fri: Grout Laundry
- Sat: Grout MBR
- Sun: Rest
- Mon: Mark + Tile Master Hall
- Tues: Ditra DR + Study Nook
- Wed: Grout Master Hall
- Thurs: Mark + Tile DR + Study Nook
- Fri: Ditra BR2 + 1/2 G. Hall
- Sat: Grout DR + Study Nook
- Sun: Rest + move life back to master suite
- Mon: Mark + Tile BR2 + 1/2 G. Hall
- Tues: Ditra BR3 + GBA + 1/2 G. Hall
- Wed: Grout BR2 + 1/2 G. Hall
- Thurs: Mark + Tile BR3 + GBA + 1/2 G. Hall
- Fri: Ditra Music Nook
- Sat: Grout BR3 + GBA + 1/2 G. Hall
- Sun: Rest
- Mon: Mark + Tile Music Nook
- Tues: Ditra Living Room + Foyer
- Wed: Grout Music Nook
- Thurs: Mark + Tile Living Room + Foyer
- Fri: Grout Living Room + Foyer
Even if we don’t stick to the 40 day plan, we will definitely be knocking out the floor project in this order. Goodbye, sanity; hello, blisters!