Well since I just finished grad school I now have time to work on my house. The first room I am working on is my laundry room. I plan on tiling the floor, painting the walls and adding some cabinets.

The first thing I am doing is adding tile to the floor. I want people's opinions on what color tile. My wife and I picked out two while we were at Home Depot that we think would look good. I plan on putting the tile in the laundry room and kitchen. The pictures are of the tile in the kitchen against the wall and the black granite counter tops that we have. The wall color going in the laundry room will be a lighter shade of the blue in the below pictures.

What color tile does everyone like? Or do you think something else would look better?

 

I like the look of the smaller tile, but I think you might want to find something larger. What size are those tiles?

 

Of the two, I like the lighter one with the colours you already have in that room.

 

The smaller tile is 12X12 & the larger one is 13X13. What size do you think I should use in the kitchen? I think the 13X13 looks better (size wise), but if we go bigger I don't know if those would look good in the laundry room.

We liked the lighter one also, which is probably what we'll go with. Seems that it would be the most neutral of the two for resale in the future.

 

How are you handling the tile removal, especially the tile that's under the cabinets?

 

I plan to just break the tile and scrape it up. I don't think there is tile underneath the island.

 

You might want to check that before you begin. Breaking tile up underneath cabinet overhangs doesn't sound like fun.

 

Pretty sure the tile doesn't go underneath the cabinets.. I know our neighbor installed the tile for the previous owners to "upgrade" the kitchen. I don't think he installed the cabinets after placing down tile. He did a shitty job in our pantry (left the edges uncovered).

 

Ah, that makes sense. In my house all cabinets were installed on top of the flooring, so there's tile or hardwood under all of them.

 

I also like the lighter colored tile

 

Ty for the advice everyone.. I plan on painting the room tomorrow and tiling this weekend. The cabinets will be a xmas gift from my parents so those won't go in for a couple more weeks.

 

I took out vinyl tiles before & put in hardwood in my last place & it SUCKED getting the tiles off especially behind the stove, fridge, dishwasher, etc. I personally like the darker one, especially in the kitchen...make sure you get the right grout & to use minimal very small spacing.

 

Do the tiles in the laundry room match the ones in the kitchen (which look about 12x12)? How does the size of those tiles look?

To me it looks like the existing tiles are also 12x12 and you could easily go bigger - maybe 14x14 or even 16x16. Probably not much bigger than that.

Still, those light 12x12 tiles will still help update the kitchen quite a bit.

So those cabinets (which look pretty nice) are going to be replaced or are you just adding more?

 

The laundry room currently has linoleum, so I will remove that and tile it with 12X12 tiles since it is a small room and large tiles would look out of place.

The kitchen (in the pictures) has 12X12 tiles.. I think I am going to put in 16X16 tiles in the lighter color. I realized tonight that the tiles look lighter in the pictures than they do in person.

The cabinets in the pictures are the kitchen cabinets. We want to add a couple cabinets in the laundry room to replace the cheap looking wire racks that were in there.

 

Sounds like a plan.

 

Hmmm. I might do this over my Christmas break to my laundry room too. I have to make a choice on whether or not to buy a shed, tile the lanai, or tile/paint our laundry room. Choices choices.

 

Tile/paint = easiest

 

I like the 18x18 tile the best. I think it's a good contrast to the the blue walls and matches the counter tops best!

 

The bigger tile is actually 13x13.. We are going with the lighter tile because it is darker than what is shown in the pictures. We will probably use 18x18 in the kitchen and 13x13 in the laundry room.

 

cool deal. Yeah I was wondering about the shades, because a lot times pics don't do the tile justice. Sometimes you just have to see it in person to get the right perspective. I'm sure it will look good brother. I looks like you are doing a damn fine job as is.

 

The first 3 are of what the laundry room looked like before I started. The pictures don't have the 2 wire shelves that were on the walls.







The next 2 pictures are after I attempted to remove the linoleum. I was relieved to see that the entire piece was not glued to the concrete (just the edges were).





The next 2 pictures are of the linoleum removed and the area cleaned.





The next 2 pictures are of the 1st coat of paint on the walls.





I am going to put on the 2nd coat of paint tomorrow. I plan on tiling the floor Saturday, so I'll have more picture updates then.

 

Big improvement already. Keep us posted.

 

Yeah the pictures don't do the paint justice imo.. Just having paint on the walls and removing the ugly floor have improved the room.

 

Got all the tile cut today.. took longer than I thought it would, but wanted to make sure it was perfect. Going to lay the tile tomorrow

 

Looking good, Horny. Did you cut with a wet saw or a scorer?

 

Bought a wet saw from Home Depot for $70-$80.. worked perfectly for what I needed.

Spent $200 on all materials and tools for this project, which is very cheap IMO.

 

Tile is laid

 

Very nice..!!


Just curious, why didn't you do full tile pieces on the left side and hide the rest odd pieces under the washer/dryer?

 

I wanted it to look symmetrical as you looked into the room.. most of the right side will be covered by the washer/dryer.

 

I'll take a better picture later to show you what I meant.. realized the picture doesn't show the full view looking in.

 

Nice, I tiled my bathroom last year and it was the first tile job I have ever done. Turned out very nice.

I did a hopscotch pattern on mine though. Any plans for different patterns?

 

The tile in the laundry room is already set.. I may do a different pattern in the kitchen though, but will have to test it out once I get more tile.

 

To awnser jonesi's question & not that Im a professional or know what is correct if there even is, but I thought you were supposed to lay tile starting in the center of the room with full pieces and move out from there in case walls are not square or what not, idk though

 

I centered it on the doorway view and the wall where the W/D will go.

 

Got the grout done tonight.. just need to paint the trim around the tile for a fresh look and add some quarter round to the bottom.

Should hopefully have cabinets in the next 1-2 weeks so that'll be the next update. Definitely a fun project, and I learned a lot. It didn't turn out perfect, but it turned out good IMO.

 

Looks really good!

 

Nice work!

 

Thanks

The grout did dry a lighter than the pictures which is what I expected.. it blends in better with the tile.

 

Looks good. When you re hang the door, did you have to do any trimming or adjustments due to the added tile height or was the clearance good enough.

 

Haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure I'll be fine. The tile is very close to the height of the adjacent wood floor, and prior to the tile there was space b/w the wood floor and bottom of the door.

I'll let you know tonight when I put the door back on