This week is my kids spring break and they are on a trip with grandparents.
So I’m taking a small pause on the boys bathroom to knock out a project that needs to be done while no one is here for a few days.
It includes undoing ALL of the work I did this past fall and winter in my kitchen and essentially destroying it. (I love that for me.)
I shared a project preview yesterday in my Instagram stories but YOU are going to be the first to know the details of what’s actually going down!
Friends…. We are ripping out our kitchen tile floors!
Believe it or not, having a few full weeks a year where I can completely devote my time to a house project is one thing that brings me a lot of JOY!
I definitely miss my kids (and husband) like crazy but if Im able to devote my brain to something that I love as a little break from the day to day grind of being a busy mom, im all in!
I know will get plenty of slack for ripping out “perfectly fine tile” from all of the internet Karens, but what really matters is that THEY JUST DON’T WORK FOR US!
By now, you know I’m a huge supporter of making a home work for the people who actually live in it!
3 reasons we are ripping out our kitchen tile floors
1 – The transitions are ROUGH!
DurIng the first year(ish) of living in this home I tore out over 3000sq ft of cherry laminate flooring and replaced it with RIGID CORE LVP. It made such a HUGE difference in the upgrading of our home and I have zero regrets! What has been annoying about this is that the new floors created a 1/4 inch gap between it and the kitchen tile. The transition pieces look janky and we stub our toes on it often.
A few months ago we started mulling over the idea of continuing the new flooring into the kitchen so that it would be cohesive throughout the whole house and I couldn’t get it out of my head.
2- They show EVERYTHING!
Dark gray, one tone tile is a horrible design choice for a kitchen because THEY SHOW EVERYTHING! Crumbs? They are constantly visible everywhere. Footprints? All over the place. Waterspots? Smeared and filthy looking.
Even being a “no shoes in the house” family, the kitchen floors ALWAYS looked dirty. Even after they were cleaned they looked dirty a few hours later. It drove me insane!
With it being the most used area of our home, it’s just not worth living with something that causes unnecessary stress.
3 – I just don’t like them.
No explanation needed!
Kitchen Progress IN REAL TIME
Because ripping out tile is such a huge undertaking we decided to hire out the demo portion. Literally JUST the demo. then it was up to me to prep the space, clean up after demo and then prep the concrete and finally lay the new floors.
There are SO many steps to this process and I have been working day and night for the past 4 days to try to get our kitchen back in working order before the family comes home this weekend.
I just shared a small glimpse of the process on Instagram stories on Monday, but in reality im already a few days ahead because I dont share content on social on the weekends.
Here is the real life timeline of how this project has gone down:
Friday: Moved furniture, clear out pantry essentials, move anything that was on the floors/couldn’t bet be covered by dust barrier.
Saturday: Removed all baseboards & trim work including all nails and caulk. Removed accent work on kitchen island. Taped up all dust barriers.
Sunday: (early am) moved all appliances and shut off the water to the kitchen. (mid morning) – crew came to demo and remove tile- took about 6 hours. (evening) I started dust cleanup – mopping walls, removing dust barriers, clean countertops and backsplash
Monday: Mop walls again. Deep clean concrete floors (vacuum, mop twice) repair cracks in concrete and applied concete primer.
Today’s plan is to lay self leveling concrete so the floors are completely level. I’ll do that in the morning, let it cure for 3-4 hours then lay the plastic moisture barrier.
If all goes as planned I will start laying floors on Wednesday and have 3 full days to get the room put back together before the family comes home on Saturday!
Now that you know the 411 on this massive project I hope you will join me over on Instagram this week to watch how it all goes down.
Chat soon!
