Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Bathroom floor
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09-22-00, 01:21 PM
My bathroom floor is tiled, but it is old and needs to be replaced. Do I need to remove it before putting down a new floor? I would like to perhaps put lanolium (spelling?) down. How do I do it? Any suggestions would be helpful.
09-23-00, 03:24 PM
Nikki D:
As long as your floor tiles are still sound and stuck down solid to the floor, there's no problem covering ceramic floor tiles with linoleum.
What you should do is remove the toilet and quarter rounds from the baseboards in the room. (Remove the baseboards if you have the one piece baseboards, though.) Now buy some cement based floor leveler powder and some of the recommended additive. I use Mapei Planipatch for the floor leveler, and the recommended additive for it is called Planipatch Plus. The additives for these cement based mortars, thin sets and floor levelers is usually a water based latex glue designed to make the mixture stick to surfaces better and dry harder than it normally would. You mix the first coat with the additive only, then dilute the additive 3:1 with water and use that solution to mix the floor leveler powder for the second coat.
Mapei doesn't recommend it, but I'd advise you to spread a third coat mixed with only water. When it dries, lay a bright light on the floor and sand down any rough sections and fill in any depressions with more floor leveler mixed with only water. The floor leveler mixed without any additive will be very "powdery" and easy to sand smooth. Once you get it reasonably smooth, them dilute some of that additive 3:1 with water, and paint that on the soft, powdery floor leveler with a roller. The additive will get drawn into the dry floor leveler and will glue all those grains of cement powder together as it dries. The result will be a smooth HARD surface to install the linoleum over.
Make a pattern of the bathroom floor out of wallpaper first. I find the wallpaper rolls that the store is trying to get rid of that sell for $1 per roll work the best. Lay that pattern on top of the linoleum in a room large enough to lay out the linoleum flat, and position the pattern so that it is parallel to any pattern on the linoleum. If you don't do this, then the pattern on the installed linoleum won't be parallel to the walls, suggesting the floor was installed by a disgruntled monkey dissatisfied with the number of bananas he was getting for that job.
Once the pattern is taped down to the linoleum, trace the pattern onto the linoleum with a felt pen, remove the wallpaper and cut the linoleum with a razor knife being careful not to damage the floor underneath by having the foresight to slide a piece of plywood under the area you're working on as you go.
Dry fit the pattern and do any necessary final trimming. I find that a utility knife fitted with a hook blade razor blade is ideal for lifting up the corners of the linoleum so you can trim with a pair of scizzors. The suction of a vaccuum cleaner hose works well for this purpose too.
Fold back one half of the linoleum and have someone hold it in place while you spread out the adhesive on that part of the floor. Wait the recommended time for the adhesive to get tacky and lay half of the linoleum down into the adhesive and press it down with a baking roller or just your bare hands. Now fold back the other half and do a encore performance.
I find that a 7-11 Big Gulp cup is the ideal size to plug the drain hole for the toilet when you're working on the floor. This keeps dirt and stuff from falling into the pipe and keeps the sewer gas from coming into the bathroom. Be careful of the floor flange under the toilet. Go to the plumbing forum and read my post to the woman wanting to replace the sponge gasket on her toilet tank. This will give you all the info you need to remove and replace your toilet.
I'd advise you to spend more on the perimeter glue down linoleums. They are more expensive, but they are much easier to replace because you only glue them down around the perimeter of the room.
As long as your floor tiles are still sound and stuck down solid to the floor, there's no problem covering ceramic floor tiles with linoleum.
What you should do is remove the toilet and quarter rounds from the baseboards in the room. (Remove the baseboards if you have the one piece baseboards, though.) Now buy some cement based floor leveler powder and some of the recommended additive. I use Mapei Planipatch for the floor leveler, and the recommended additive for it is called Planipatch Plus. The additives for these cement based mortars, thin sets and floor levelers is usually a water based latex glue designed to make the mixture stick to surfaces better and dry harder than it normally would. You mix the first coat with the additive only, then dilute the additive 3:1 with water and use that solution to mix the floor leveler powder for the second coat.
Mapei doesn't recommend it, but I'd advise you to spread a third coat mixed with only water. When it dries, lay a bright light on the floor and sand down any rough sections and fill in any depressions with more floor leveler mixed with only water. The floor leveler mixed without any additive will be very "powdery" and easy to sand smooth. Once you get it reasonably smooth, them dilute some of that additive 3:1 with water, and paint that on the soft, powdery floor leveler with a roller. The additive will get drawn into the dry floor leveler and will glue all those grains of cement powder together as it dries. The result will be a smooth HARD surface to install the linoleum over.
Make a pattern of the bathroom floor out of wallpaper first. I find the wallpaper rolls that the store is trying to get rid of that sell for $1 per roll work the best. Lay that pattern on top of the linoleum in a room large enough to lay out the linoleum flat, and position the pattern so that it is parallel to any pattern on the linoleum. If you don't do this, then the pattern on the installed linoleum won't be parallel to the walls, suggesting the floor was installed by a disgruntled monkey dissatisfied with the number of bananas he was getting for that job.
Once the pattern is taped down to the linoleum, trace the pattern onto the linoleum with a felt pen, remove the wallpaper and cut the linoleum with a razor knife being careful not to damage the floor underneath by having the foresight to slide a piece of plywood under the area you're working on as you go.
Dry fit the pattern and do any necessary final trimming. I find that a utility knife fitted with a hook blade razor blade is ideal for lifting up the corners of the linoleum so you can trim with a pair of scizzors. The suction of a vaccuum cleaner hose works well for this purpose too.
Fold back one half of the linoleum and have someone hold it in place while you spread out the adhesive on that part of the floor. Wait the recommended time for the adhesive to get tacky and lay half of the linoleum down into the adhesive and press it down with a baking roller or just your bare hands. Now fold back the other half and do a encore performance.
I find that a 7-11 Big Gulp cup is the ideal size to plug the drain hole for the toilet when you're working on the floor. This keeps dirt and stuff from falling into the pipe and keeps the sewer gas from coming into the bathroom. Be careful of the floor flange under the toilet. Go to the plumbing forum and read my post to the woman wanting to replace the sponge gasket on her toilet tank. This will give you all the info you need to remove and replace your toilet.
I'd advise you to spend more on the perimeter glue down linoleums. They are more expensive, but they are much easier to replace because you only glue them down around the perimeter of the room.
09-23-00, 03:30 PM
Nikki D:
Go to the 3rd page of the plumbing forum and read my response to Perplexed's question entitled "Replacement of toilet bowl gasket". This will tell you how to remove and replace your toilet properly.
Also, I forgot to mention that the purpose of spreading the cement based floor leveler over your floor tiles was to prevent the grout lines from "telegraphing" through onto the surface of the new linoleum floor.
Go to the 3rd page of the plumbing forum and read my response to Perplexed's question entitled "Replacement of toilet bowl gasket". This will tell you how to remove and replace your toilet properly.
Also, I forgot to mention that the purpose of spreading the cement based floor leveler over your floor tiles was to prevent the grout lines from "telegraphing" through onto the surface of the new linoleum floor.