Chipped Nails: Installing a vinyl floor is a simple, inexpensive project – Southeast Missourian

By line / Cutline:With the subfloor installed and primed and the vinyl tile glued down, the only remaining task is to rent a 100-pound roller from the lumberyard and roll it over the finished floor.

Cutline Email/Stock:Emily Priddy

My first inkling that the previous owner of our adorable little Craftsman bungalow might not have been the next Bob Vila came a week or so after we moved in, when I walked across the kitchen floor and heard a series of popping sounds.

I glanced down and realized what I'd heard was the grout in the brand-new tile floor cracking and popping up like popcorn.

The cat was thrilled; flying grout is fun to chase. I was less amused -- especially when I pulled up one of the tiles to discover why the grout was crumbling: The previous owner had installed the tiles directly onto the floorboards.

Bless.

His.

By line / Cutline:Emily Priddy runs a 100-lb. roller over the vinyl tile once it's installed.

Cutline Email/Stock:Ron Warnick

Heart.

With a new floor in my future, I decided to swap the ceramic tile for vinyl. It's not as elegant, but it's kinder to glassware, and it's faster and easier to install.

Out with the old

I bought an electric grout remover and took up the old floor, using a hammer and a hive tool -- a type of small pry bar, normally used for prying apart frames in a beehive -- to pull up the tiles that weren't already coming loose on their own. (A putty knife probably would have worked just as well; I just grabbed the hive tool because it was handy.)

When I was done, I put on a dust mask and goggles and ran an angle grinder over the mastic-covered floorboards to knock down the roughest spots. I'm told larger tools can be rented for this purpose, but I wasn't willing to mess with that for less than 100 square feet.

Emily Priddy runs a 100-lb. roller over the vinyl tile once it's installed.

Ron Warnick

Installing the subfloor

The trickiest part of installing a floor is working around cabinets.

Right angles are easy: Just measure a rectangle and cut a piece of cheap quarter-inch waferboard to fit.

In my kitchen, the cabinets start about a foot into the room, with a corner cabinet at the end nearest the dining room, which creates some awkward angles.

To figure out the angle at which I needed to cut the waferboard abutting that cabinet, I cut a rectangle just wide enough to fit the narrow section of floor between the cabinet and the dining room.

A yardstick and a rectangular strip of waferboard yield a handy template for working around awkward angles while installing the subfloor.

Emily Priddy ~ epriddy@semissourian.com

I slipped the waferboard into place, then laid a metal yardstick against the angled side of the cabinet and drew a line from the cabinet all the way across the board.

I cut along the line with a jigsaw, laid the now-angled end of the board on top of a new piece of waferboard the width of the angled cabinet and repeated my earlier process, this time laying the yardstick along the edge of the angled board and extending the line out to the edge of the new piece of waferboard.

The other challenge in installing the subfloor is working around doors and trim. Fortunately, the waferboard and vinyl together were about the same depth as the old tile, so I just slipped the edges of the boards and vinyl tiles under the baseboards and moved on. Had they been thicker, I'd have had to remove the baseboards, trim the moulding around the doors with a jamb cutter to allow clearance for the flooring below and reinstall the baseboards when I was done.

Once I'd cut all the waferboard and laid it in place, I anchored it to the floor with half-inch wood screws.

Priming the subfloor

By line / Cutline:Vinyl tile is relatively easy to install over an inexpensive waferboard subfloor.

Cutline Email/Stock:Emily Priddy

I used a short-nap weenie roller to coat the subfloor with latex floor primer, which runs less than $20 a gallon and goes on like paint.

Following the instructions on the container, I applied two coats, but given the way waferboard drinks primer, I probably should have given it a couple more to reduce uneven spots and make the tile stick better. Live and learn.

Installing the vinyl

If your house is good and square, you can use a tape measure and a chalk line to make a big cross extending out from the exact center of the floor and use it as a guide for laying self-adhesive vinyl tile, but our house is so old and wonky, I decided it would look better if I just picked the longest wall with the fewest visual distractions and aligned the tiles with that, trimming as necessary to work around awkward corners, heat registers and other obstacles.

Once I'd stuck down all the tiles, I rented a 100-pound roller from the lumberyard and ran it over the whole floor.

By line / Cutline:Installing a subfloor around an obstacle such as this heat register requires some piecework with a tape measure and jigsaw.

Cutline Email/Stock:Emily Priddy

I can't say it looks perfect, but the whole project cost less than $100, and it's much better than it was. At worst, if I decide I hate it later, I'll have a decent subfloor I can use as a starting point for something fancier.

In the meantime, it's an improvement that taught me a lot about flooring and gave me a good excuse to buy an angle grinder, which I'm sure will come in handy later.

By line / Cutline:I briefly thought the hardwood floor under the tile might be salvageable, but my lack of experience with the angle grinder quickly put the kibosh on that, so I went ahead with my plan to install this waferboard subfloor, followed by vinyl tile.

Cutline Email/Stock:Emily Priddy

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Chipped Nails: Installing a vinyl floor is a simple, inexpensive project - Southeast Missourian