What A View!!! : Farmhouse Project - New Vinyl on Our Bathroom Floor

It was a dreary rainy day today. The perfect day to work on an indoor project.

I ended yesterday's blog with a picture of a piece of vinyl flooring, stretched out in the garage, with the words "Just relaxxxxxxxx".

That's just what it was doing!

Relaxing!

Where did it come from?

Why was it relaxing?

Hmmmmm Let me explain.

Last fall, we were walking through the local Menards (mid-west chain like Home Depot) and I happened to glance at the remnants in the flooring aisle. I like looking for bargains too. I saw a roll of a big hunk of my FAVORITE vinyl flooring, called "White Cement". I like it because there isn't ANY pattern to it. Its just nice mottled white and cream flooring, perfect for older homes. Why? Because walls or trim are NEVER straight in old homes. No pattern, No grids, No lines. It's a soft spongy warm to the feet vinyl flooring. Easy Peasy to install (glueless) and very pleasant to the eyes.

We had put this in the bathroom in our last home, in Chilton. I always told Steve that I would like that in our current master bath in this house, but it had been discontinued. But.... Lo and Behold, there was ONE roll left on the remnant pile. We needed approximately 12x12 and it was 12x 12' and 2 inches!

It was marked down from $174 to $139, and then another 15% off plus an 11% mail-in rebate... left us with the final cost of $111.20~ SOLD!

We brought it home and set it out of the way in the garage, because we had a lot of other projects to work on, and the vinyl flooring that was in the bathroom was good enough. It just wasn't to my liking. The flooring was fairly new, only put in a year or two or three before we bought the house. It was actually a third bedroom that had been converted into a large bath with master access. I loved the bathroom, just not the flooring. It has such a busy pattern, and it conflicts with the beautiful embossed Italian wallpaper and looks so patchy and dark on the floor. I always knew I would change it, I just didn't know when. This morning, over coffee, Steve said "WHEN"!

(then he made a joke:

"Isn't it better to just mop the floors,

instead of changing the flooring every year or two?")

First thing to take out was the claw foot tub. It was fairly easy, because we only had to unhook the drain. The faucets are the standalone style, still left standing on the floor on their own. We did have to remove the bathroom door to the Master Bedroom to get it to fit through. So it's blocking our closet, and the door is propped up on the wall.

Next thing to get out was the toilet. We have removed and replaced enough of them over the years to know to use sponges to get all the water out of the tank and bowl, get a new wax ring before you re-install it again, and set the toilet on plastic as well as cardboard to soften and protect the hardwood floors of the diningroom.

Now out comes the pedestal sink. We just put that in last summer, so the fittings are all new. But don't you know, it gave him the most grief! Those special "shark bite" PEX tubing connectors are supposed to hook and unhook easily. But boy oh boy did it give him a tough time, reaching up at a tough angle.

FINALLY!!

We worked together to carefully remove each piece of quarter round trim. I numbered each piece on the back side with a magic marker so we knew which way each one went back in, especially which side was UP. Then we rolled up the old flooring and took it out of the way. It was just pouring outside, but that didn't matter, we were inside and dry.

(take note of that open heat register on the wall

under the window, more on that later...)

We knew this had been a third bedroom, and the flooring was never refinished like the rest of the house. We knew there had been renters in and out of the house since about the 1970's so it has seen a lot of wear and tear.

I count four different colors

of paint on the floors:

Brown, tan, red and pretty blue.

But hardwood floors and bathrooms don't really mix. They needed to be covered back up with some new sheet vinyl.

We carried out the old piece in full and unrolled it on top of the new flooring. A perfect template! I can not imagine trying to install the first piece in that room with all those angles and corners starting from a large rectangle! This was easy-peasy to just trace around the old one onto the new one. This was my job, Steve isn't so good on his knees any more.

I got it all traced around, and then with an especially nice scissors (given to me by my good friend Rosie) I was able to snip snip snip around all the edges. It cuts easily, and is soft and it has a spongy texture.

When I was done, Steve came back out and helped me roll it up to carry it back into the house. We dashed through the rain drops via the pergola covering and didn't get too wet. Unrolling it on the floor, we let it relax for a bit while we made some lunch.

We had one "OOPS"! We had a roll of duct tape in the room, and it got bumped and rolled across the floor, right into the open heat duct! The grill had been off to get the flooring into place. That roll of tape went right in like a bowling ball into the pins! Ding! It went wayyy down in the duct, and now we will have to tear apart the duct from the basement to get it out again. It was so ridiculous, that it happened so perfectly. It made us laugh and laugh.

I had cut the new flooring a bit bigger, just in case, so we could make sure it reached each fixture, baseboard, and doorway with enough to spare.

We took a break (and a nap) on a drizzly rainy afternoon. There was no hurry to get it done, because have another half bath to use while this one is out of commission. We can still use the shower stall if need be. So it didn't HAVE to get done today.

But... you know Steveio, Mr. Zoom Zoom. He just had to keep on going.... So after our nap, we got the edges all cut perfect.

The trick to this flooring (non glue type) is that you need about 1/4 inch gap all around so it can expand and contract with the humidity. Then when you nail on the quarter round trim, you do NOT nail downwards through the flooring, you nail aimed backwards to the baseboard wood. Also using little cardboard spacers as you nail the quarter round trim, it leaves enough of a gap so the flooring could move and not get pinched down tight. Once it is nailed, then we pull the spacers out.

He said let's get the tub back in, so it gets out of the bedroom where it was blocking the closet and the heat register vent for the furnace. It lined up perfectly and the drain was hooked up in a jiffy. It sure looked nice on top of that flooring, if I do say so myself.

Steve chose to put the toilet back in next. The new wax ring was placed down, the flange bolts secured, the caps back on to cover them, and the cold water line hooked up. He had that back on in just a few minutes. Wheeeeee!

Yup...

we got a sh*tter!

Now that last thing was that danged sink! (I love that sink - we had the same one in our log house out on the river all those years ago, and we found one just like it that we put in here last summer). I was holding it while he was lining up the pipe and the water lines. It was goofy and futzy. We took it back off three times, once because we dropped a part down in the center of the pedestal!

Finally we got it all lined up, level, and into place. Now to re-connect those SharkBite fittings. Danged if the cold one would not hook up right. He fought and fought with it. And swore a bit. It was not working out. ARGGHHHH It kept leaking, a tiny bit. Working at an odd angle, he was finally able to get it all hooked up, tested, and functioning!

And here is our new floor .... all done!

(SHOUT OUT TO DEAR JUANITA,

TAKE A LOOK AT THE RUG!!!!)

It sure brightened up the room. With all the odd angles and turns and corners, it would have been really tough to start with a large rectangle of flooring. I am soooo glad we had the old flooring to use as a traceable pattern.

I got everything put back into place

while supper was cooking.

Here is the last wall, with the angled entrance from the diningroom... I have the little antique leaded glass lamp on a timer as a night light for late night bathroom trips. I love the old beadboard linen closet, and then we have the towel bars on the back of the door to the master bedroom.