Since we got our new stove and fridge, Shara and I decided to finally get rid of our hideous laminate flooring as well. We decided on a luxury vinyl tile that can be grouted. It has all the convenience and comfort of vinyl with all the looks of ceramic tile (or in our case, slate tile). I figure I will cover the renovation step by step so my experience can serve anyone out there wanting to do the same thing.
This luxury tile is still relatively new to the home improvement market. I had a heck of a time finding any good instructions for laying the tile. Anytime I googled “Luxury vinyl tile” I would get a bunch of results about laying conventional vinyl tile. When I would google “Groutable vinyl tile” I would get instructions how to lay ceramic tile. So I took both sets of instructions, combined them and came up with my procedure for laying this groutable vinyl tile.
I’ll get more into that when I actually get to the tiling step. Right now I have to worry about step 1 which is the demolition of the old floor.
The laminate came up very easi
ly. It wasn’t glued down or anything. When I pulled up the laminate, I found a layer of sheet vinyl underneath. I was expecting this. I just didn’t know what was underneath the vinyl. Luckily, it was the only other floor covering. The Sheet vinyl was in pretty good shape except for one spot directly in front of the refrigerator where there was a deep gash about 3 feet long. The gouge was full of grime and it appeared it had been there for a while.
I could have laid the new tile directly over the sheet vinyl. That is one of the benefits of the luxury vinyl tile: it can go over just about any floor covering. But something just kept nagging me to pull up the underlayment as well.
Tool time! Since the kitchen cabinets were installed over the existing subfloor and also since there is a transition between the kitchen and living room on the same level, I will need to cut away the subfloor from the edges of the cabinets and from the floor transition. Otherwise I would have to remove the cabinets and peel back the carpeting to find the seams. I used a circular saw and an oscillating multitool to do the work (check the pictures).
The oscillating multitool had a 
flush-cut blade so I could get right in there along the edge of the cabinets and cut away the underlayment. It requires a lot of patience since the tool doesn’t cut that fast, but it eventually gets the job done.
The transition to the carpet was a bit trickier. I had to remove the original transition and track from the laminate floor which left behind the unfinished carpet edge attached to the tackstrip. I made a guide (out of the old laminate I just removed – recycling!) and ran the saw right along the edge of the carpet.
Once the underlayment has been cut away, it just takes a bit of muscle to pull it up from the subfloor. Luckily, mine wasn’t glued down. I don’t know if that is a common practice, but it was still difficult since there were like 1,000,000 staples holding it down
Stay tuned for the next installment. I will cover some of the surprises and joys that come with home ownership and home improvement. I will also get to the purpose of this whole exercise which is installing luxury vinyl tile on my kitchen floor.
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