As you all know, I'm a college student living away from home. I live off-campus and I've been trying to make our little town home our "home away from home" which has included making some adjustments. So I decided to do a mini kitchen makeover! First up, I decided to "redo" the floors and had been looking for a cost efficient and temporary solution as we are renters.
Here's the before...
Preparation:
I had originally thought about peel-and-stick tiles that can be bought at Lowe's or Home Depot but when I asked the employees about it they seemed to believe that the solution would be too permanent. The lady then proceeded to give another solution...vinyl sheets. Lowe's sells precut vinyl sheets (they sell a 6x9 and I think a 5x7 sheet as well) for about $25 bucks a pop. Considering our kitchen is roughly 54 square feet a 6x9 was perfect for us! They come in different shapes and sizes with patterns ranging from big marble to small tile pieces to hardwood, etc era.
Now the question would be how to install it.
Here's what you'll need:
Precut Vinyl Sheets (we only needed one, but however many you need for $25 each)
A Utility Knife (few dollars at any hardware store)
Double-Sided Scrapbooking Mounting Tape (originally $7, but with a 40% off coupon it's only about $3 or $4!)
And lastly, a pair of scissors and a measuring tape
If you already own a pair of scissors and measuring tape and only need one sheet of precut vinyl then your total comes out to be a whopping $30. Bonus: If you split the cost between 4 roommates like we did, it only costs everyone about $8. You're welcome.
Once you've picked out how many vinyl sheets you'll need and what pattern, you can gather your supplies and begin!
Measuring:
Before you begin, you're going to need to do some measuring. This should be done before the vinyl sheets have even been bought. Simply grab a measuring tape and measure the width of the edge of one side of the floor to the other. Write the numbers down. Next, measure the height of the floor and write down. If you have an L-shaped kitchen like ours, you'll need to do the other side as well. If not, measure all the rest of the sides.
Cutting the pieces:
Now that we had our measurements, it was time to cut our vinyl. Lay the vinyl out on a flat surface to see what you're working with. Next, grab an expo marker (or technically you could use a pencil or highlighter even) to mark off the measurements from one area from the kitchen. Now do the same for the others. The trick here is that it's like one big puzzle piece. You have to play around with the vinyl sheet to see where the pieces will work out the best and fit. In our case, we had to cut some smaller pieces to fit the area which is why you see the line in it. Now supposedly, it is best to warm up the vinyl with a hairdryer because it's easier to cut, but we found that it wasn't necessary. The vinyl is easy to cut with the utility knife but it may take a few times to get it started. Honestly, we just cut the pieces in our living room on top of the rug and it didn't hurt a thing! If you're more cautious, anywhere on a flat surface outside would do the trick just fine.
Pro tip: When installing the pieces around appliances, you may have to cut a square "u" shape to get the vinyl to fit around the appliance. The shape would look like this: I_I
Installing:
Simply place the cut vinyl pieces straight over the previous flooring. The next step is easy, yet a little time consuming. It probably took me an hour or two to "install" the flooring. All I did was cut the mounting tape into roughly 1 & 1/2 inch sections and place it on the back side of the vinyl edges like this:
After the pieces are placed on the back of the vinyl, then I would peel off the green wrapper for the other double-sided side.
After continuing the process for all the edges, I put more pieces along the edges (about every foot and a half) to secure the flooring more. Continue doing so until you feel like all the edges and pieces are secured to your liking!
Side Note: Our vinyl pieces did not always match up perfectly to the edges of the flooring, in this case, we used scraps to cut accordingly to cover the edges that were showing.
Here's the before and after!!
To cover up the lines from the separate vinyl pieces, I decided to disguise it with some rugs. I found these for $1 each from the Dollar Tree.
Now enjoy your new temporary flooring!!
