The "it doesn't matter what color you painted the room or what you drop on this rug" tile:



https://www.homedepot.com/p/Na...Case-16088/308025782

A steal at $1.04 / sq ft.

WTG, thanks for those links! Why are you so good at this?!!

So, I need to read more about the peel and stick, because for that last link you sent, it says they're easy to replace, rotate, clean, which means they must not be that "sticky"

So something like that might actually work. The first two link you sent are closer in price to the modutiles, and I wouldn't want to do that as a temp solution. The last one is about $1.05/sq foot, and the cheap carpet I found at Lowes was something like $0.70/sq foot, so those are better options for a 1-2 solution. If we could stay below $1.10/sqft then I would be happy.

Also, I might be crazy, but I kinda like the assorted tile look. I actually think it would look awesome with the wall color and the white built-ins. Let's see what Mr. SK thinks!

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
WTG, thanks for those links! Why are you so good at this?!!

You're welcome!

And to answer your question:

a) I've owned a house for nearly 40 years and....
b) I'm cheap and...
c) The invention of the internet and search engines gives new meaning to the old Yellow Pages adage "Let your fingers do the walking"



edit: I kinda like the funky look, too. And they're from Home Depot...free shipping and you take them back to the store if you don't like them....

They also happen to be available via Amazon; worth checking out just for the reviews and photos of customer installations.

https://www.amazon.com/Nance-I...sorted/dp/B01MCSQ25Z

Cool, thanks!

The more I look at those, the more I like them! I'll let you know what Mr. SK thinks!

Ok, pardon my ignorance... The square footage is approximately 224.

If each box covers 40 Square Feet, does that mean I need 224/40= 5.6 boxes??

(Why, yes, I did get an incredibly high score on the math portion of the GRE, why do you ask?

Or, if the HD site says one box is 33.3 sq ft, do we need 224/33.3=6.7
So 7 boxes?

I hope that's right, cuz I like that price!!

Ok, I chatted with the HD online assistant, she said my calculations are right, so I'll plan for 7 boxes plus maybe 1 or 2 extra...

I really hope Mr.SK likes this idea, cuz I am ready to order these things right now!

I try to do a sketch of the rooms and lay out my pattern before I order materials.

It's not just about square footage, it's about how the tiles will lay out in the room. You don't want to have a full tile on one side and a skinny one inch piece on the opposite wall.

And not so much for these tiles (because it's a patchwork look and you'll never notice), you often can't use the cut piece from one side to fill in elsewhere. You always want factory cut edges to butt up against each other. And you should be consistent with direction if the tiles have one. Otherwise it just doesn't look right.

It's pretty typical to buy 10 to 20 percent more than the actual square footage to account for making necessary cuts to make the floor look right, erroneous cuts, and for damaged tiles that might crop up in the box.

OK, am rushing the math here, so I hope I get it right...

These tiles are 20 x 20. Actually, they are 19 3/4 x 19 3/4, according to one of the Amazon commenters.

Let's say your room is 150" by 124". You would need 8 whole tiles to cover the 150" and seven tiles to cover the 124" direction. The square footage is a hair short of 130 sq ft, but you end up using 56 tiles at 2.71 sq ft per tile (19.75 x 19.75), which is almost 152 square feet of tile. If you ordered strictly by square footage, you'd be short.

In the 150" dimension, seven whole tiles would give you 138.25. That leaves 11.75. which you would divide in half; the two ends of a row would each be 5.875.

You do the same for the other direction, planning how to center along that line and figuring out how big the end pieces will be.

I don't know if you would be putting these down in rooms that are adjoining but with a doorway. You also want to consider the doorway when coming up with a plan for laying them out.

Does this make any sense?

quote:

Does this make any sense?

Ummm, no. But it's not you, it's me!

So,

quote:

You don't want to have a full tile on one side and a skinny one inch piece on the opposite wall.

Why not? Does that mean you want to start in the center, and you would have two half-tiles along each wall?

Also, if I want 10-20% more, and the basic square footage tells me I need 7 boxes, doesn't that just mean I should buy 9 boxes?

Also, the built-in desk means there's less sq. footage than the actual sq. footage of the room (right??) so I feel like we should be ok with starting out with 9 boxes.

Also, I did another online chat w/ a help person and she said that there's a risk of fraying when you cut the tiles, so she recommended "sealing" the cut edges with some kind of basic fabric glue. Does that sound right to you?

quote:

Ummm, no. But it's not you, it's me! suave

Yea, I kinda had a feeling mine wasn't the best description. Here's a website that describes the process, with pics:

https://www.diynetwork.com/how...install-carpet-tiles

quote:

Why not? Does that mean you want to start in the center, and you would have two half-tiles along each wall?

Exactly.

A lot depends on the tile itself, but if one side is full-width and the opposite side is a small piece, it pulls your eye toward it and it doesn't look right. It will look better if the "pattern" is centered in the space.

edit: I missed the first conversation with the HD rep confirming your calculation. Did she know which tiles you were considering?

If the carpet tiles were uniform and plush, then the skinny piece on one side isn't as important because the plush carpet blends together and the seams aren't visible... Otherwise, keep going, dear reader, because there are problems that may arise if you start at one wall and work your way across with a patchwork pattern like this one...

You can have a problem with a wall running out or the entire room being out of square. If you start at one side and put the tiles up against the wall, the whole floor might end up being angled in the room, which looks really bad. That's why you find the centers and start from there. If the tiles at the edges get a little bit wider or narrower as you move your way through the room, you won't notice it. But if a one inch width becomes two or three over the length of a wall, and only on one side, it will emphasize the wall that runs out.

As the saying goes, don't ask me how I learned this.

You won't necessarily have half-tiles left over, it might be less (say if you have 15 inches to fill on either side, you'll only have 4.75 inch pieces left). With these carpet tiles, you might be able to use a less-than-full tile on the opposite side or adjacent side, depending on how the floor lays out and what you need when you get to the cut piece next to the wall.

Yes, you can subtract some for the desk if you don't plan to take it out, install tile under it, and then re-install it.

I haven't worked with this particular type of carpet tile, but I guess I don't understand how it will fray and fabric glue seems over the top; maybe the rep knows something I don't.

The cut edge will be up against a wall and get no traffic so I don't know how it would fray. If you have a cut piece in a doorway, then you probably put some kind of threshold for the transition from carpeted area to uncarpeted to eliminate a trip hazard, so of course no fraying would happen then, either. But maybe I'm missing something.

You can spend time doing the calculations and laying out the pattern in a super-detailed fashion to try to get the exact amount of material. You have to weigh the cost of your time to figure it out versus just ordering some extra and not worrying about it. For expensive materials it might be worth the effort, but at this price per square foot, I'm not so sure. Plus you probably want a little extra if the colors you get aren't quite the mix you want; a couple of Amazon reviewers mentioned that happened to them.

BTW, I asked about the install of your TV room floor because of the overage issue. The way that tile is laid in the room in the photo is not how an installer would put it in. They will stagger the pieces at the ends so the the floor looks random and the ends don't line up on adjacent pieces; real wood flooring used to be random length and it just happens naturally. With manufactured products that are all the same size, the installer has to create randomness to make it look like the real thing. He'll be starting a row with a cut piece and will vary the length of that cut piece as he moves through the room. Every once in a while, he'll start with a whole length.

You might take a look at your real hardwood floors and also your dining room as examples.

Hopefully you have some extra flooring for them to work with. As I mentioned in the previous post, errors happen, sometimes pieces are damaged right out of the box, and they are not focused on minimizing use of material and will assume you have at least 10 percent more. There's nothing worse than running out of material in the middle of an install.

WTG, that's all super helpful, thank you!!
And guess what! Mr. SK likes them too!! So we are most likely going to order them. I will probably order 3 extra boxes (and hope we can at least return one!)

Re the layout info, yeah, I see what you mean now. I imagine Mr. SK will get it right away!

Anyway, I think this could be a really good solution and it will look interesting, which is a good quality in a studio.

quote:

I asked about the install of your TV room floor because of the overage issue.

That one comes with a discount on the installation, and we decided there were too many details and ways that it could go wrong, so we'll pay for the installation. Plus we've saved a ton of money on painting by having Mr. SK do it all! Not that we don't want to save any more money, but this was one job we thought we'd pay to have done.

I bought two extra boxes, which is 15% more than the square footage, I'll check with the scheduler to make sure they don't want me to buy a third box.

Oh and re the staggering of the planks, yes, I know that's how it will be laid out, but I had to line them up like that to cover up that god-awful carpet so we could get an idea of what it would look like color-wise.

P.S. re the built-in desk, we'll put the tiles under the desk (the part that you can see, where you feet go etc.) but part of it (the cabinet part), the desk goes all the way to the floor, so we will go around that.

This is the part I mean. We'll do carpet tiles al through the area where you can see the current tiles, but we won't take the desk out, so that will cut down on some of the tiles, but it also will make the cutting more challenging, at least a little bit.

Those cabinets won't be hard to take out if you decide to replace them at some point...probably just a few screws holding them to the wall, and I'm willing to bet they're on top of the original asbestos flooring. Counter is probably held on to top of cabs with a few dollops of glue.

Assemble-it-yourself stuff is not expensive at HD, and there may be a Habitat for Humanity ReStore where you can pick up some used cabinets for a song. Craigslist, too.

so you might want to keep a few extra carpet tiles, just in case you decide to put tiles underneath instead of cutting around the cabs....

See how easy it is to dream up home improvement projects for other people?

Oh, and totally agree on paying for installation for things you maybe don't have the skills or the time for. Mr SK can watch the installers and might be ready to tackle a similar project in the future.

Mr WTG and I waited too long to learn this lesson. It's great to save money, but your time and peace of mind are worth something, too.

Ok, we ordered 10 boxes

re the cabinets, I don't think Mr. SK wants to take out the desk/cabinets or the shelves that are above (but not visible in this photo). He said he's planning on sanding the paint off the desk top and repainting it.

quote:

so you might want to keep a few extra carpet tiles, just in case

We'll probably want to do that any. Although it's not like we'd have to color match or anything!

Once we get it in place, I'll see how many tiles we have left and decide what to do.

yay!!! Thanks WTG!

As always, pictures will follow!