Tiling My Floor

My wife and I decided it would be a good idea to replace the linoleum floor in our kitchen with 18 x 18 porcelain tiles. I figured, "How hard could it be?". Turns out it totally sucks.

You see, when we first moved in to our home, we pulled up the original floor and replaced it with the linoleum. I was ready to pay someone to do this for me, but the employee at Home Depot convinved me that I could do it myself. I thought I needed to cover the subfloor with sheets of wood to level the floor properly so I bought the cheapest material I hoped would work. It didn't. I wound up having to rent a nail gun to keep it from bubbling up. I must have put thousands of nails into my floor.

Once I had the floor flat, I laid the glue and placed the linoleum down. I even rented a 500 pond roller to help the floor adhere to the glue better and prevent bubbling. It looked great ... until I got up the next morning. It had bubbles in a few places, so I rolled the 500 pounder over it again. It still didn't work. I was too upset to try anything else and figured it would flatten out over time. I was wrong again.

Seven years later and it still looked the same. Best option; lay new tile. The bad news; remove all of the old flooring again. This time though I have thousands of nail heads sticking up between the first and second lair of cheap wood sheets. I decided it would be best in the long run to remove the nails. So, one by one, I am in the process of pulling these nails up. You wouldn't believe how much this sucks. I have almost finished half of the room and feel like I have achieved a huge accomplishment.

Once it is done and the tiles are laid out, it will look better than ever and I will finally have the kitchen I have always wanted. Not to mention the pride of completing it myself. The moral of this story; do it right the first time.

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