Stop ruining floors!!
Ok, note to HGTV/TLC shows about how to sell your house: Stop, please — for the love of God! — stop telling people to put stick-down tiles in their kitchens. Just stop it.
When one buys an older home, unless the kitchen has been recently updated, he/she will be executing a kitchen reno in the reasonably near future. It’s a fact. Owners of old cottages frequently do at least part of such work themselves, old cottages being very attractive options for DIY types. Stick down tiles only make things worse. They are a nightmare to pull up. They get gunk stuck in the cracks if they aren’t laid exactly right, which is just gross. And, in the right circumstances, the adhesive can somehow bleed up onto the surface. Oh and did I mention that they are a NIGHTMARE to pull up? Because they are.
If the kitchen floor of the house you’re trying to sell is a disaster, do everyone a favor and just put down the cheapest sheet vinyl you can find at Home Depot or Lowe’s and move on. It will be clean and bright and that is all anyone wants. They will tear it up to put down cork or hardwood or VCT anyway and when they do, they will bless you for the sensitive P.O. (that’s Previous Owner) that you were. Who doesn’t want that kind of positive karma?
AMEN!
I had the 1950s version of this nightmare. Vinyl (thank you POs) was over two layers of 50s or 60s linoleum that had to have been applied with about 700 gallons of mastic. We spent a full week on our hands and knees scraping that off the hardwood with heatguns and putty knives.
Oh you nay-sayers! In my first cottage, a 1940’s 500 sf beach cottage with 3/4″ plywood walls, the PO put down the lovely stick-on tiles. Sure periodically they would peel off, but I found was that it just created a jaunty pattern of yellowish vinyl and glue encrusted cement sub-floor. When the PO gives you lemons . . .
We used those peel & stick tiles in a kitchen redo when we had not much money and our place was a fixer-upper. They looked fine, cleaned up nice but I would never do them again. You’re aboslutely right about the gunk coming up between tiles, which then gathered dust, dirt, dog hair, etc.
Another thing is that even if you let them sit for a while, they still can shift when they’re freshly laid. So you might think you’ve got them perfectly set and then you walk across the floor one day and something slides & shifts, exposing the gunky adhesive and throwing off the tiles.
Also they’re difficult to cut and we ruined a few boxcutters with the adhesive (even leaving the backing on to cut). For the price, you’d be better off doing a wood laminate or, as was suggested, a vinyl sheet.
gak! Horror stories all! It bugs the hell out of me when people on these home shows who are supposed to be “experts” recommend such a crap product.