Kitchen flooring ideas

I have to admit, the project was to "fix the creaking kitchen floor" . The contractor whom we hired suggested we rip out the old vinyl floor, add a 1/2" plywood sub-floor and nail it the joists to help with the creaking.

While the idea of ripping the 10 year old Vinyl floor seemed appealing, my wife really wanted Tiles for replacement. The contractor concurred and besides he said it would make the floor that much more sturdy. But, once you put Tiles, makes the floor cold in winter and I did not like the idea of standing barefoot on that floor, so I wanted heated floor. Of course to add to this, we waned the backsplash tiles as well. So, there we go, from a small" fix the creaking" to a full blown kitchen flooring project!

What I wanted to say in this blog was how placing the Tiles differently makes a difference. I wanted to skip the traditional grid pattern and all Tiles of the same color model. The contractor suggested doing a diagonal pattern. I really wanted staggered pattern. I also wanted to mix a few Tiles of contrasting color in there somewhere, although I got scoffed at by the Tile shop salesman for this (non)idea:-)

Anyway, with these ideas in mind I and my wife spent days in Tiles shops and on the Internet, finally settling for very light beige plus a few dark shaded 50cm square tiles. The contractor agreed to do the diagonal staggered pattern. We could not do a fully staggered pattern as the Tiles did not come in different sizes. He put a few Dark colored tiles in the mix, and voila... the Flooring was done.

The contractor later told me he had never done a diagonal staggered pattern and I said there is always a first time for everything. So bottom line is go with your instincts (don't let those sales guys influence your decisions), and you will get a unique product to enjoy.

Oh, did I forget to mention, the floor creaking is gone!

As always check out all of my blog at //productsforphiles.blogspot.com .

-Ha!mysuri