Flooring ‘N Tiles

With the kids at home for the summer, let’s take a look at some relevant flooring options.

Interlocking foam flooring is a marvelously durable and safe product with an incredibly wide array of possible uses. For children’s playrooms, this soft product is easy on the feet and definitely superior for those nasty and repetitive crashes kids make onto floors all over the world. It’s their job, after all! But these interlocking foam flooring items also can come in riots of colorful and kid-pleasing sections, whether put together like some interesting puzzle that attracts the eye or simply in the simplicity of an arrangement of primary colors.

But interlocking foam flooring has many other uses of interest to a homeowner as well. Their easy cleaning and easy replacement makes it an ideal “mud room” flooring, easily washable and, if damaged, simple to replace entirely. As a flooring surface for an exercise room, it aids in sensations of quiet and warmth for walking barefoot and for softening the crashing oif weights or the irritating noises concomitant with repetitive exercise in general. It’s noise suppression equals its quality as an absorbant surface, much more resistant to damage at the surface.

These floorings install in literal minutes and are stain-resistant, fireproof, noise suppressive, lightweight and waterproof. They also come in some surprising tones and colors, some even resembling wood.

Ironically, or maybe not so much, they also make a fabulous outdoor product, once again as durable as they can be and colorful. Interlocking foam flooring systems are easy on the feet and helpful, once again, with those tendencies of children to “crash and burn” while having fun.

Sorry about the break here… time to get back to blogging, and I figured we should cover some basics today -

How to measure your room for tiling.

While on the topic of laminate flooring, I figured a quick DIY tip is a good topic for one more blog post!

Repairing laminate flooring is reasonable simple in the end and follows some sensible methodology.  However, unfortunately, inasmuch as laminate flooring clicks into place like a jig saw and receives its strength from just that interlocking nature, it may require a substantial amount of removal and replacement to really fix things.  For example, the most common and most recommendable manner of fixing it involved removing all the interlocked laminate flooring pieces which extend inwards from the outer edge.  Thus, it is a process of removing all strips leading to the affected area.

Thus, simple as it may seem in principle, it can be one big pain to fix them, owing to the sheer volume of what needs to be undone just to get to the area desiring a replacement board or two.  Nevertheless, since they are a simple fix, from the standpoint of complexity, it is pretty easy to do.

Start at the closest edge by a wall and remove the molding.  Make sure you don’t break the moulding either, lol.  Careful!

From this point, it is your standard average simple matter of separating the boards which interlock until you take out enough to arrive at your desired fixable area. Hopefully, you will have the correct-colored and sized boards in your hot hand to replace the damaged one.  From here, we just rebuild, going once again, wall-wards.  When finished, tack the molding back in place and you have your newer, better floor!

Removing floor tiles can be in sticky process. In the end, much depends on whether or not you want to preserve the tiles for some future project or not. When the goal is to save as many tiles as possible, it then becomes a tad thornier. Most floor tiles are adhered to their sub floor with some of the strongest products made. Separating tiles from the sub floor is therefore a project requiring the right tools and some patient work. In the end, strength can also be a huge help.

Some tiles, of course, are adhered by virtue of cement. This can be easier or harder than a typical floor mastic, but, once again, I can assure you, it is more of the above. Among the tools you need is a pry bar, a hammer and chisel (preferably a “cold chisel”, suitable for stone work), a small strong screwdriver and perhaps a rotary tool, good for cutting and certainly helpful in the removal of the grout along the sides of all the tiles.

First, let’s get rid of the grout between the tiles. While these areas are not the bulk of its adherence qualities, they certainly are an aid to keeping tiles in place. Removing these will certainly help. Not removing them will certainly hurt, in other words…

As a test, try and insert something underneath a tile, preferably a screwdriver whose flat edge can get below the tile and work its way further underneath. It might be worth the attempt to try and lightly hammer the tool under. It may just be that one might have to literally break a tile to get underway. Sacrificing a tile will give the ability to stick a wider chisel underneath and provide more surface area for prying. Once this is done, continual working of the tool under the tile should get on to the point at which the tile can be lifted out. Unfortunately, this will require repeating until the effect is achieved completely.

Removing floor tile is hard work. This may one one of those projects for a professional owing to the flying debris and general brutal strength required to pull it off.

A question I often get asked, is how to do mosaic tiling? As a relatively time-consuming, labor intensive project, installing mosaic tiles does have a few definite short cuts to completion. As a professional, a contractor does not have the luxury of a “near-perfect” result. His mosaic constructions need to be professionally and artistically perfect. Thus, most professionals opt for the ‘paper’ or ‘mesh’ processes which involve the actual configuration of the tiles to be constructed on a separate surface. (Incidentally, this part of the process is pretty much a given for any installer, professional or otherwise).

Thus arranged in the manner they will appear on the floor or wall, a “mesh” or “paper” is glued to the tops of the tiles to hold them in place. We try and make sure we work with a small enough sample so that the transference will keep the entire integrity of the design in place and unmoved. We then set this “batch” of mosaics onto a thin set applied to the sub surface. By adjusting appropriately, the tiles are set into place and the paper or mesh is extracted. Pressing the tiles into a firmer position adhering to the thin set can be done in any number of ways but preferably with a straight and flat board which should eliminate problems resulting from uneven thicknesses of the mosaics.

Once adhered, the last part is the grouting which follows almost all grout rules: spread evenly and clean thoroughly. Make sure when cleaning to dump and clean the sponge used for cleaning often. With some irregularities on the surface which are pretty routine in ceramic and glass tiles, grout can stick to them. Also, some careful consideration is always necessary in choosing the color of the grouting itself. Inasmuch as many colors and tones are available, there is bound to be a satisfying combination to opt for.