try it tuesday: laying tile

Well, I'll be damned. It's Try it Tuesday.

In our ongoing adventures in home ownership, we had to tackle the landing at our back door. The linoleum there was just plain yucky. Our plan: cheap and easy. Enter Traffic Master groutable vinyl tile. 

One box was more than enough. The tiles, while they look like ceramic, are actually vinyl. That means we were able to cut them with a utility knife, rather than having to rent a tile cutter. The great thing about these tiles, though, is that they're super thick and tough, so they resemble ceramic completely, but there more forgiving when you walk on them and don't get as cold.

Since we were dealing with a small space, we just arranged the tiles a few times (with the backing still on) until we were happy with the general placement. Then we removed the backing and stuck each tile in place over the old floor. We used plastic spacers to give a 1/8 inch space on all sides for grout.

Husband did a fantastic job trimming all sides so they fit the wall perfectly (with many thanks to the school board for giving him a snow day on which to do the work).

I don't have an official before photo, but please journey back up to the first photo to note the difference between the grungy grey-blue from before, and this after:

We are beyond happy with the way it turned out and would highly recommend this to reno novices like us.