So excited to share my recently updated laundry room on the blog today! If you are new around here, Matt and I (Anne) bought our house this past August and we have been working on updating it over the past few months. New flooring, fresh paint, white trim, new appliances and decor throughout the house! We are taking our time making it ours and some bigger renovations will come in the future (kitchen & bathrooms). There are so many little projects we want to do and it can be overwhelming looking at it as a whole. Kate gave me some advice the other day as I was overwhelmed with some projects and wanting to update. She said to take it slow and enjoy our house, there is plenty of time in the years to come for projects. Sometimes we don’t know when to step away lol just go go go! I loved that and have definitely taking some time to just enjoy!
ITEMS WE USED:
- Tiles
- Exacto knife
- I bought this primer for the floors, but ended up not using it
- Ruler
- Roller for tiles
- Washer & Dryer
- Olympus White Sherwin Williams paint
PEEL & STICK review:
I loved the idea of getting a new, fresh floor and being able to do it ourselves! These tile options are amazing and we did it all for less than $100. I ended up doing the floor on my own (Matt was working & I’ll admit I’m very particular when it comes to doing projects like this lol). These tiles are thicker than normal. I love that they go right over the grouted tiles and doesn’t sink into it. I would definitely recommend these if you want to DIY and want something affordable. I had a lot of wrist pain, swelling after this project and my nails, and hands were pretty beat up. Don’t be alarmed if this happens to you. I suggest starting tiling early and spread it out, I did all the big cuts in one day.
Some tips & tricks
- Patience & practice – I was hard on myself and wanted every cut to be perfect, but needed to give myself a break and realize that nothing was perfect and it’s ok to make mistakes. I saved some of the harder cuts and most visible ones until after I practiced a little.
- laying your first tile is important. Buddy (my brother) helped me with the pattern and told me that in a space like this using the tiles the long way was the way to go. It also was a pattern I could follow. I started on the end of the hallway we see the most and lined up the tile in the center of the door way.
- Using an Exacto knife. This was definitely the most challenging part. The knife would slide, not cut into the tiles deep enough. I wish I used a ruler when making the cuts. (place it where you want it and cut along. This would have 100% made my life easier! lol) I used similar straight edges but found that drawing the cut with a pencil first helped the blade follow along.
- Heat the tiles with a hair dryer before!
- Clean the space really good (I cleaned, scrubbed and Lysoled so much that it damaged my nails)
- When calculating the square footage, always go over 10% to give yourself some room.
- Measure twice, cut once. I love this saying! Buddy always does this. Same goes for when you’re getting ready to set the tile. Make sure it fits good before peeling it off.
- Don’t be fussy behind the washer & dryer!
Plumbling
Luckily we decided to re-do the floors and as we were taking the washer out, disconnecting the hoses, the hot water was leaking from the top. The knobs were so old that they were almost stripped. Buddy helped walk us through trying to fix it ourselves, but unfortunately the pipes were going to have to be cut. We shut our hot water off for the night and luckily a plumber was there was next day to fix it and update the shut off valves before our washer and dryer came.
*make sure you check this before the delivery service comes or else they won’t install it
