Planning our first DIY project

I’ve talked a little about how, once the work on the foundation is done, we plan to do almost all of the rest of the work the house needs ourselves. A plan my father has laughed at, but whatever. We’ll show him.

This weekend we started planning the first project we’re going to tackle. The floors in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom are cracked and have holes all in them, so they’re going to have to be replaced.

The kitchen with the big holes in the tile.

We have hated these floors almost since the first moment that we moved in. Pretty quickly (like within a few months) of buying the house, they started cracking and getting holes in them. It was incredibly frustrating since the floors were brand new. The house was flipped right before we bought it, so the kitchen and bathroom had just been gutted.

The cracked and broken tiles in the bathroom.

As soon as we officially decided that we were going to sell the house, we knew that the floors were going to have to be redone first. We originally planned to lay new tile in both the kitchen and bathroom. I even went out to Denver to my sister’s house in January and helped her put up a tile backsplash in her kitchen so that I could learn how to lay tile, in preparation for our floors.

But it was actually my sister (conveniently after I had flown to Denver and spent 4 days tiling her backsplash) who first suggested putting luxury vinyl plank (LVP) in the kitchen, instead of tile. She and her husband bought a house last year and have been doing lots of work on it, and in all her research, she convinced me that people don’t really want tile in the kitchen. More and more people are putting hardwood floors or some other wood-type flooring. We have hardwood floors in the rest of our house, but there was no way we were going to spend the money to put hardwoods in the kitchen, so LVP would be a good second choice.

The view into the kitchen (through the refrigerator room) from the dining room. More holes.

Our realtor ultimately convinced me that LVP was the way to go in the kitchen. She felt that whoever buys the house is going to come in and immediately redo the kitchen. In the past, we never wanted to rip out the tile, even though it was cracked, because the kitchen was brand new when we bought the house. But now the kitchen is 11 years old (and apparently most people don’t want your main refrigerator in a different room. Huh. Weird. I thought refrigerator rooms were going to become the new trend.). As soon as she said that, I knew she was right. If I was buying this house now, I would absolutely redo the kitchen. She felt that we should do something that looked nice, but that was cheaper than tile. “I would hate to see you sink a lot of money and time and effort into a floor that is going to be immediately ripped up.” So true. So I was convinced on the kitchen.

I still wasn’t sure about the bathroom, but, again, both my sister and our realtor said we just shouldn’t put the money into it. I was still somewhat on the fence about it, but was leaning towards doing LVP in the bathroom as well.

The very awkward transition from the dining room into the refrigerator room with a step that has tripped many people. And Rigsbee coming to see why I’m on the floor.

Last weekend, Chris and I went to the store to start looking at our options. Neither of the rooms are huge, and laying LVP is supposed to be straightforward, so we are pretty hopeful that we’ll be able to get it all done ourselves while not ending up divorced.

We first saw laminate, and while there are better options in laminate than I had seen before, it still just looks and feels really cheap. The LVP isn’t that much more, so I knew that’s what I wanted. As far as colors, we’re looking at a gray plank for the kitchen. We have the hardwoods in the rest of the house, plus the wood toned cabinets in the kitchen, and trying to come up with a wood color that didn’t look like we were trying to match with either of those would be impossible.

Another awkward transition into from the hallway into the bathroom.

So we picked up a bunch of samples for a gray plank for the kitchen. Then Chris saw (way up top, where I never would have seen because I don’t look up that high) a marble LVP that was actually really pretty and shiny and looked like marble. I immediately said, “that would be perfect for the bathroom!” I came home and checked with my sister and she approved (I have to get her approval on many parts of my life) so I think that’s what we’re going with.

We still need to narrow down the options for the gray plank. They have ones that look like tile or stone, so maybe we’ll try one of those. Once we’ve decided we need to take measurements and place our order. Oh, and then figure out how to remove the old tile. And how to replace a subfloor. And how to lay the plank.

So if anyone has any tips or experience with laying LVP, I’m all ears. We can use all the help we can get. Or if you just want to laugh at us along with my Dad, well… I don’t really blame you.