We headed over to Lowes to see what our options were. I have loved wood look tiles since I first saw them. These ones by Style Selections in Natural Timer Ash are so pretty!
The guy at Lowes almost had us sold on these laminate planks by Pergo Max Premier in Heathered Oak.
The install was something that I was pretty confident about doing ourselves, but then I started reading about people having problems with these types of floors in bathrooms because of the moisture. The last thing I wanted was to spend all that time and money just to have our floors start warping. And seeing as how this is the boys’ bathroom I anticipate a lot of water hitting the floor!
So I drove myself nuts for weeks trying to figure out what to do. I’m pretty sure the hubby started going to another place in his mind whenever I got on the topic haha!
But one day while browsing the flooring aisle at Lowes for the tenth time, I ran across these vinyl peel and stick planks by Style Selections in Driftwood.
The color is what drew me in–the online pictures don’t do it justice because it’s much more gray in person. I was immediately impressed with how real they look. They even have a raised wood grain texture on them.
Despite my excitement, the hubby was not sold at all. But we finally came to the agreement that at only $0.98 a square foot this would be a good temporary solution until we can afford to do tile.
Supplies Used: (Affiliate links may be provided for convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.)
- Style Selections Floor Planks from Lowes (similar on Amazon here)
- Liquid Nails(for areas of the old flooring that were coming up)
- Simple Green
- Contour Gauge
- Utility Knife
- Tape Measure
- Carpenters Triangle (for cutting straight edges)
- Wood Rolling Pin
The old peel and stick floors were put down on a sheet of laminate but were starting to peel up in some of the high traffic spots. The night before I began I went around and used Liquid Nails to stick them back down.
I laid a bunch of the new vinyl planks down on top as it dried. They are surprisingly very heavy!
I also laid out a few planks to see which direction I wanted them to go.
Ultimately I decided on the second option since it flows as you walk in the door and it would be less short pieces to cut in.
I began the next morning by sweeping and then going over every nook and cranny with a vacuum hose. After every little piece of debris was picked up I went over it with some Simple Green and a scrubbie. Make sure that your floors are as clean as you can get them because that is the key to making sure that these bad boys really stick.
Finally it was time to start laying the planks! I was so nervous that I was going to mess it up, but was pleasantly surprised with how simple it was to install.
Each piece has arrows on the paper backing to show you the direction of the wood grain. This helps all of the pieces flow together to look like real wood.
You just peel off the paper backing and stick it down. When you get to a vent or other obstacle you just use a utility knife against a straight edge (I used scrap wood) to score and break it away.
For areas next the door and vanity I found the Contour Gauge extremely helpful. With this I was able to just push it up against the obstacle and the little metal pins would retract in so that I could lay it on my tile and trace where I needed to cut. It made cutting those difficult spots so much easier!
I didn’t take a picture of this step since I got caught up in the project, but this is what it looks like:
I laid whole planks in a staggered pattern then went back and filled in the ends. This worked pretty well except for a few that I laid slightly crooked. When I went back to put the filler piece in there would sometimes be a small gap. To prevent this, it’s probably better to go row by row and get the filler pieces laid as you go.
I used a wooden rolling pin over each one to make sure the adhesive on the back stuck nicely. It worked pretty well except it was kind of hard to get in tight areas. When I do this in our master bathroom I have my eye on this Edge Seam Roller to make it a little easier!
It was smooth sailing until we got to the toilet. My awesome Father in Law came over to help me and came up with the idea to just slightly loosen and lift the toilet up and slide the pieces underneath. It saved us from having the make the cuts but it did cause them to bow up a little bit because of the weight of the toilet. It’s not super noticeable but something to keep in mind.
The last step was caulking and I’ll spare you all the messy details and just let you know that when you go to caulk around the toilet, please, please, please tape it off so that you don’t get a ton of caulk on your pretty new floors! It washed off but was a total pain in the butt. Oh and I also learned that you shouldn’t caulk around the very back of the base so that you can tell if the toilet ever leaks.
So about an hour and a half and 20 bucks later we had pretty new floors!
I just love it!
You guys–I can’t emphasize enough how awesome the texture is in person!
Not bad for a temporary solution! In fact, doing tile jut got pushed way down on the priority list because I’m honestly really happy with these. And guess what? The hubby ended up being pretty impressed too. Who would have thought… 😉
I have received several emails about how fantastic the shower curtain pairs with these floors. I found it at Target (link here) and have been really happy with the quality and thickness of it.
I have also had a few readers ask me where they can purchase this type of flooring online other than Lowes. I found these similar ones on Amazon with great reviews. Happy flooring everyone!