All major projects seem to be a mix of excitement and dread. Pure excitement and joy at how fresh and amazing the end result is and dread when it comes to clean up and mess. I’ll admit, I was nervous about the end results. Did I pick a good tile? Would the color work out how I imagined? Will I regret not doing the entry in a different tile? How much impact will this have on our lives this week? So many “what if”s and uncertainty, but in the end it was all worth it.
Day 1: Demo
Perched upstairs with Percy, I had a bird’s eye view to all that was going on with the floors down below. Furniture was moved and it was virtually empty downstairs. Day One was Demo Day. The friendly worker from A&N Construction and Custom Flooring spent all day ripping out the carpet, carpet padding, tacking strips, and tile. He also had to scrape up any glue or paint from the sub floor. You guys, he worked hard and only took a 40 minute lunch break the entire day! By the end of the day everything was swept up.
I was a little crazy and thought- “Well, since the carpet is out, I might as well paint the office so I don’t have to worry about putting a tarp down or moving furniture.” So, I stayed up late that night and painted the office. Luckily I had already started cutting in and my husband had painted the wall where he mounted his TV. It only took a few hours. The bonus: the look of confusion on the worker’s face the following day as he tried to pinpoint what was different.
TIPS:
- Use masking tape along the edge of the tile that is to remain. When the sharp tools are hammering away at the old tile, the masking tape should help protect the existing tile.
- Use butcher paper/newspaper and painter’s tape to mask off doors or areas that shards of flying tile could hit and damage.
Day 2: Floor Prep
I thought the three workers would jump right in to tiling on this day. Silly me. They cut some of the bottoms off the baseboards so the tile could tuck in underneath. Doing so allowed us to avoid replacing all of the baseboard in the entire house. Percy was neither a fan of the saw noise nor was he enjoying the smoke detector going off due to all of the dust in the air. We took a long walk during that portion of the day.
The cement sub floors had some low spots that needed to be leveled. Leveled floors is crucial to reduce the chance of cracked or uneven tiles when having long plank tiles installed. My husband was impatient each day he returned from work when there wasn’t a newly tiled floor to greet him. The old adage, A stitch in time saves nine comes to mind. Having the preparation done right, and not rushed, leads to better results in the long run.
There was so much dust! Everywhere. Dust. Dust was from both cutting the baseboards and the chalk dust from snapping the straight lines for laying the tile. I spent the evening vacuuming up and wiping down the kitchen. We didn’t need to add more fiber -by way of sawdust- into our diet, ha ha. Here are some things that I should have done, now that I look back on the adventure.
TIPS:
- Use shower caps on the smoke detectors to avoid an accumulation of dust that sets them off all over the house.
- Put plastic over doorways not being tiled to minimize the dust spreading to other areas of the house.
- Time the changing of your air filters for your AC (if you have one). After the tiling project ends, you can change the filters and reduce the amount of dust blowing through the vents.
Day 3: Start Installation
This is it! The tile started going in on day three. We chose Ashford Truewood Cream wood plank porcelain tile 9 x 47 inches, with a matte finish. It is made in Spain and has a PEI rating of IV. PEI rating is the rating of the hardness of tiles. A PEI rating of I would be for purely decorative tiles on walls. The highest rating of V would be for high traffic areas, often commercial spaces like airports. We purchased our tile from Floor and Decor in Austin. Originally I thought we would find what we were looking for at a design center. We couldn’t beat the quality and price that we found at Floor and Decor.
I went with a grout color that was suggested by Floor and Decor and they had a sample of grouted flooring in the showroom. We didn’t skimp here. You want a grout that will last, especially in high traffic areas. We went with Mapei 35 Navajo Brown Ultra Color Plus FA grout.
The grout line was greater than I originally envisioned. This was due to two factors. First, the tile was a pressed edge as opposed to a rectified edge. A pressed edge means that when the tile was made it was pressed into a mould so there is a slight curve to the edge of the tile. A rectified tile has a blunt edge that is machine cut or ground down to minimize grout lines. Second, the tile edge is not perfectly straight so butting the tiles up together would leave irregularities in spacing. The installers thought it best to give a little wiggle room with the tiles so the look would be more uniform overall.
TIPS:
- Order more square footage of tile than that of the floor or project to accommodate for incorrect cuts, broken pieces, etc.
- Keep about 10 pieces of tile and any unused, open bags of grout in case you need to patch or fix tile down the road. (Printing and dye lots can change with each batch.)
- No walking on the tile for 12-24 hours once it is laid, so be sure to gather any thing you need from an adjoining room. EX: I needed to get an overnight bathroom bag together since our master bath access was cut off.
Day 4: Install and Exit Route
Day 4 they installed tile in the family room, the hall to the garage, the hall leading to the entry and up to the base of one side of the stairs. Planning the tile installation was critical at this stage. Our entry from the garage was cut off because of freshly laid tile. We also needed access each day to the kitchen and upstairs where we were staying.
Do not walk or put weight on newly laid tile. We gave it a good twelve+ hours before we walked on our tile. Not even our huge pup got to walk on it. (That nine pounds was a risk we weren’t willing to take. Ha ha.) Leave plenty of time for the thin set to cure. The edges of the thin set are exposed to air and will cure faster than the thin set under the center of each tile. If walked on too soon after installation, the tile will get that hollow sound when stepped on it and may end up cracking or popping up over time.
This was a long day for these workers. I left town on a pre-planned trip go visit two of my sisters and to work on a wood wall feature in my niece’s nursery. (A post for that project is in the works.) It was so difficult to leave the job site. I have control issues. My husband ended up buying the workers dinner on his way home from our youngest boy’s flag football practice. I’ll admit that I would never have considered that nice gesture. I am so not food oriented.
TIPS:
- Find care for pets if you will be away for extended periods of time during remodeling. Whether it be work during the day, or being out of town, the pet’s life is completely turned upside down. They need a mental break from it all. Unless it’s a goldfish, or something similar. Pretty sure they won’t remember a thing.
- Eat out, eat at a friends, or bbq and dine al fresco. There is so much dust resettling inside that it is difficult to keep it out of your food prep.
- Perhaps refrain from taking trips if you want to keep tabs with what is happening at the job site.
Day 5: More Installation
They installed the dining room, the front sitting room, the entry along with the rest of the stairs and the office. This blocked off the front door, but left the back door, garage door and a corner of the stairs available for walking on. Once completed with laying the tiles, the thin set needed to cure for 24 hours before grouting.
Side note: While sitting upstairs working, I could hear the tile saw, hear the hustle of working, and smell the thin set. I totally had an emotional minute. Someone must have been slicing onions because the tears came along with a stream of memories of working with my dad. It almost felt like he was down stairs working. Perspective was gained when I heard the mariachi type music playing. Yep, that’s not Dad down there. Thankfully the workers never knew this was such an emotional project for me. Who knew that it would be? Not me.
Day 6: Grouting
I do not envy this job. I helped my dad grout many a tile floor and my hands always got so dried out from the process. Ugh. I’ll admit that there are times when it feels good to not have to do the labor. I did have someone tell me that if I had a DIY blog, that I should be the one doing the floors by myself. When I chatted with the tile installer about this, he started laughing. He was like, “This is my job and I wouldn’t even do this much floor all by myself.” That made me feel better. Thanks, man.
Lots and lots of grouting with lots and lots of mopping. It took a while and clean up was a beast. They came back an additional day to finish the clean up. There were grout smudges that hid when wet against the pattern of wood grain on our tile. It all got cleaned up in the end.
TIPS:
- Be prepared to do lots of cleaning! I used a Swiffer duster with the extension pole to dust the walls and air vents.
- Plantation shutters are way easier to clean than drapery. I just used a wet rag and a bucket of water to wipe all of the shutters after a good vacuuming of the windows and sills with the hose extension.
- I took the time to wipe off and touch up all of the baseboards while there wasn’t any furniture in the way.
- Great opportunity to wipe off all of the doors, ceiling fans, and moulding/trim around the house.
- When putting furniture and items back, evaluate if you want to change things up or reduce what you own. Great time to de-clutter!
FINISHED PRODUCT
Hooray! We survived our flooring remodel adventure. After the crew was gone and the cleaning was done, we got to work putting our house back in order. It was a great time to put in a new area rug and touch up things around the house. We love how it all turned out and honestly couldn’t be happier with the tile, the look, and the color. Everything looks amazing and I am so pleased with how it updated our house. This was years in the making and I am satisfied with the results.
Shout out to Jayson and his crew at A&N Construction and Custom Flooring at 214.985.2816. They are a local company here in Austin. A website is currently under development and will hopefully be up and running sometime next week. In the meantime, they allowed me to share their phone number with all of you. Give them a call for your remodel needs.
Guys, thank you all so much for taking this flooring journey with us! We survived the dust and absolutely felt like this was worth the expense. I am so happy with this huge step at making a house a home. 💙
More Home Design Posts:
Advice From a Professional Interior Designer
Caulking Baseboard and Getting Professional Results
How to Paint a Straight Edge on Rounded Corners
How to Do a Wood Accent Wall that Looks Woven
It looks amazing!
Thank you. It’s also really easy to clean, which I love.
It looks so good!
Thank you. I admit that I was not sad to see that carpet go.
Hello, it has been a year since you posted this. How do you like the tile? Is it easy to clean? I see it at floor and decor and it has some texture. Is it difficult to keep clean? Does dirt stick to it? Any cleaning suggestions? Thank you. The tile looks beautiful
First of all, thank you for your questions and time. I am loving the floor! We have three boys and a dog so there is a lot of traffic and dirt brought into the house year round. The tile has been great at camouflaging dirt and smudges, way better than at another house where we had shiny wood floors. My husband gifted me a robot vacuum and that has been awesome to run while I have been busy working on DIY posts. Other than that, the tile is easy to sweep and vacuum. The only time I notice dirt sticking is if someone had muddy feet when they came inside, but that is pretty typical. The bonus is that it is not carpet, but can be mopped. I have a lot of floor to mop downstairs, but it has been really easy to keep clean. I am impressed when I,too, first had some reservations about the texture. It hasn’t been a problem at all. Hope this helps.