DIY – Laundry Room Makeover – Part 3

I know, I know, I’m going out of order for my laundry room makeover. But, bear with me, I got chicken with the cabinets so I needed a little win to build up my confidence 🙂 So I’ve started my laundry room makeover with the peel and stick tile flooring. I just love this update because it only cost me $26, about 2 hours of work, and it makes such a huge difference! The laundry room is finally starting to have some character.

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this update. If you follow me on Instagram then you know that I originally tried to update my guest bath with peel and stick tiles and it didn’t go well. I was worried about the water seeping under the tiles and the pattern didn’t line up exactly. Ultimately, I nixed the idea and painted the tiles (blog post to come). So, I was a little skeptical, but there is limited water in the laundry room, the space is a fraction of the size, and I picked a different pattern. So this time it went much smoother!

Materials:

• Peel and Stick Tiles. There are so many options on Amazon ! I used these and I love them but I’ll link some other good options. For my small laundry room I needed 2 packs (20 tiles total)
• Scissors or exacto knife.
• Bathroom Cleaner. This is to remove EVERYTHING off those floors, if they are dirty then the tiles can’t fully stick to the floor.
• Micro-fiber rag. If you have a dog then this is a must, I give the area a quick wipe down with a micro-fiber rag to pick up all the hair before I lay the tile.

Step-by-Step Process:

1. Clean out the laundry room & pick everything up off the floor. Honestly, I didn’t feel like moving the washer and dryer so I just worked around them. This was such a time and money saver, if no one is going to see the tile then who cares what’s under the washer and dryer (w/d)!

2. Do a deep clean of the floors. You’ll want to get a powerful soap that will remove any and all scum off the floors. Make sure you do a really thorough job here because any layer, no matter how small, will prevent the tile from sticking.

3. Once that dries, wipe down with a damp water rag. Similar to the step above, you want to remove all this soap from the tile. I don’t use a dripping rag, just a damp one to pick up any soap residue.

4. Lay out the tiles. DO NOT remove the paper on the pack yet, this is just for spacing to get an idea of where you want to place the tiles. The typical rule-of-thumb is to start in the center of the room and work your way out. However, I’m just working around the w/d, so I didn’t start in the middle of the room. I started laying full tiles in front of the w/d and worked my way around it. This also gives you a good idea if you need to buy more tile.

• These are 12 inch tiles, my tiles are 13 inch, so I wasn’t able to play around with the grout. It’s possible, that you can place the peel and stick tiles directly over your current tiles and keep the grout lines.

5. Start laying the full pieces. One-by-one, peel off the paper on the back and start laying the tiles. I used books to add weight to make sure everything stuck and the corners didn’t peel up.

6. Start cutting and laying the fraction pieces. This is the hardest part! I use a measuring tape to make sure I’m cutting exactly where I want to. Make sure to cut the tiles with the paper still on the back and use either scissors or an exacto knife. Most blog posts will recommend an exatco knife but I can see the benefit of using both.