The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: jtraggie99 on June 14, 2018, 02:43:27 PM
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My kids and I moved into a new house in March, first house after renting a few years, post-divorce. I say that because it's just me trying to figure out a solution to my problem. It's a 1-story house, with tile throughout most of the common rooms and carpet in the bedrooms. The exception to this is my living around is carpeted, and surrounded by tile. My living and kitchen is basically one big room. The living portion of it is carpet and that area is surrounded by tile that flows through the rest of the house. Why they did that one area as carpet is beyond me.
Anyway, my kids have a cat, and older cat (12 years old), that is having a lot of issues. Suffice it to say she has wrecked the carpet. It really needed to be replaced anyway, but I hate to replace carpet with more carpet. Short of somehow managing to find the same exact tile and just finishing off the room, does anyone have ideas or suggestions on what might work to replace the carpet with ( I mean besides getting rid of the cat :) ? I mean, I guess ideally the best approach would just be to change out ALL of the flooring in that one room / area, the entire living room portion, but that could get a little pricey. The cheapest being pulling up the carpet in that one area and replacing with wood or laminate or vinyl plank or something of that nature. I'm just not sure how that would look, trying to mix tile and some other hard surface flooring.
Oh, and please excuse some of the clutter in the pictures, I'm in the middle of painting kids rooms :)
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When you bought the house, did you find any extra flooring/tiles in the garage or attic? I did in mine and it had the manufacturer and tile name/number on them, so I was able to look up and see where they were available when we researched whether to go whole house with them. You could take a nice pic with good lighting and then go to a big box store and see about finding a similar tile (which may look nice if you get one slightly darker or lighter but the same sizing - like you're highlighing the living area of the room with a different color). Even doing a small border then using a tile similar to the existing (but not a perfect match) would work out if you're careful since the border may be enough of a division to allow for a different look without looking disconnected. A flooring person could help you figure out a good solution. I can't imagine a small room section would be too terrible to do, but independent flooring companies might consider the job too small to even bid on.
If you have an older cat tho and don't feel like doing the tile thing just yet, then the best solution is just leave the carpet, but get it cleaned and get some decent pet stain cleaner and try to keep up on the messes until the cat is gone. If the cat is scratching it up, then buy lots and lots of cat scratchers (they sell the big flat cardboard ones at the 99¢ store in my area, and you can usually find the carpeted scratcher towers at yard sales and even thrift stores. Redirect the cat to scratch on the cat stuff using catnip and also by physically picking it up and placing it on the nearest scratcher if possible.
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I would check for matches at a big box store. In my neighborhood, many of the remodels use stuff from those stores exclusively, but then I'm in a DIY neighborhood. I second the idea of using tile in an obviously different color of you can't get a perfect match.
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Nice house! I would not mess with trying to match the tile that is already there. If it were me, I would buy a contrasting tile in the same size and lay them so that the grout lines exactly matched up across the two tile types. At the interface I would use one of the Schluter products that act as a transition between different flooring surfaces. Maybe a T-type strip like in the link below. https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/Profiles/For-Floors/c/P-FF
The things I'd look for in a tile are that it has a similar style. For example, don't put honed marble up against your more rustic, wavy surfaced tile. It will just look out of place. Use a contrasting color that will highlight that area as being separate from the dining and kitchen areas. You could use the color of the fireplace as a starting point.
If your current tile is a non-standard size it is quite easy to buy large format tile and cut down two sides to match what you have there. It's an easy cut if you rent a tile saw that can do 24" tile or have your tile guy do it.
You may get better answers if you post this on the Houzz site. Those people live for this kind of thing.
Happy DIYing!
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I wouldn't do anything before that cat didn't inhabit the house anymore.
Keep up after messes and consider purchasing a mini carpet cleaner or borrowing one on a regular basis.
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Thanks for the replies everyone. To answer about the cat, it's older, has some health issues, and does not always use the litter box. I'm not a big indoor animal person, but it's my kids, so it will be here until it's not. It's 12 years old, and I know sometimes cats up to 15 - 20 years (maybe not common though).
Anyway, I think a contrasting tile is the way to go. As was pointed out, something that won't clash with the somewhat rustic look of the current tile will be my main goal. Someone else also suggested maybe considering the wood-look tile. I'm not a huge fan of it, but depending on the style and color, it might work in this situation.
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Nice house! I would not mess with trying to match the tile that is already there. If it were me, I would buy a contrasting tile in the same size and lay them so that the grout lines exactly matched up across the two tile types. At the interface I would use one of the Schluter products that act as a transition between different flooring surfaces. Maybe a T-type strip like in the link below. https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/Profiles/For-Floors/c/P-FF
The things I'd look for in a tile are that it has a similar style. For example, don't put honed marble up against your more rustic, wavy surfaced tile. It will just look out of place. Use a contrasting color that will highlight that area as being separate from the dining and kitchen areas. You could use the color of the fireplace as a starting point.
If your current tile is a non-standard size it is quite easy to buy large format tile and cut down two sides to match what you have there. It's an easy cut if you rent a tile saw that can do 24" tile or have your tile guy do it.
You may get better answers if you post this on the Houzz site. Those people live for this kind of thing.
Happy DIYing!
Thanks for the info! I had not really given a lot of thought about the transition. Obviously if I end up using something that is a different thickness, it is something I will have to account for. I will check out Houzz. I'm familiar with it but never spent any time on there really.
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About 10 years ago, I had an aging dog who was starting to show signs of incontinence, but wasn't ready to be put down. My house was 80% laminate but of course he sometimes had an accident on the carpet. I bought a Bissell Little Green Portable Carpet Cleaner to clean up any accidents and it was amazing. The dog lived another 1 year, before it was time. I still have the carpet cleaner and it still works great and we use it often because the kids.