DIY Solutions: Groutable Peel and Stick Tile

One of the spaces I’ve been dying to tackle is our powder room off of our dining area. This room is one of few spaces in our home that was completely untouched, aside from some sanding on the floor. This room does double duty as it also houses our laundry closet where we have our washer and dryer and quite a bit of shelving. I didn’t want to do any alterations in the laundry closet at this time because time was an issue. I had one child-free week while our kids were at grandparent camp to work in this space. I do plan to have a small spruce up of the laundry area later on.

This is the “before” of our powder room. If this is your first time here you may not know that we live in a cabin but I’m sure you can tell from the photo. All of the interior walls in the cabin were varnished and it caused them to turn very orange over time and this was not an enjoyable look for us. We knew we would paint the room Benjamin Moore China White to flow with the rest of the cabin and we wanted to change the floors.

When I refinished all of the wood floors I sanded down these bathroom floors as well but the discoloration of the wood due to a past toilet leak before we owned the cabin remained. This being the case and our new wood floor finish being very light and neutral I knew I would need to cover over the floors. I needed a floor covering that could be done quickly, on a budget, without removing the wood floors and it needed to look nice. I have a lot of tile experience at this point and I just knew that laying ceramic floor tile was not going to be the route for me this time around.

However, groutable peel and stick vinyl tiles seemed like a project undertaking that I could complete rather quickly. I’ve known about groutable vinyl tile for a while and I’ve been interested in a giving it a try but I’ve never had quite the right space for a little tiling experiment. I decided to give it a try here in our powder bathroom/ laundry room combo so of course I went to Google first thing and watched some YouTube videos about groutable tile. Honestly I YouTube every new project I take on before I try it myself. I really like to watch someone complete the process and and hear about their experience before I jump in and read manufacturer instructions as it helps me understand the full scope of the project and areas that may have been confusing for others.

I looked around online to see different color and pattern options available to me locally and I landed on a dark charcoal and black tile with very subtle movement. I chose a lighter gray grout that contrasts nicely, hides dirt and highlights the herringbone pattern that I wanted to create with the tile.

I picked up the vinyl floor tile primer as well as the tiles and grout and a new blade for my utility knife. I first cleaned and primed my pre-sanded floor, then applied the vinyl tile primer, while that was drying I cut all of my vinyl tiles. The tiles I purchased came in 18×18 squares and I planned to cut them down to size using a t-square, a utility knife and a large cutting board. This ended up being a lot quicker than I had anticipated. I cut each 18×18” tile into 4 4×18” strips (leaving me with approximately 1.5-2” excess that I just threw away). One box covered 45sq ft and even with the excess thrown away I was able to complete the project using only one box.

Next I measured and used my t-square to mark guidelines for my herringbone tile pattern. I won’t get into that here because… well, math and there is a really great video on YouTube that I sourced to help me with this project and I’ll link it HERE so that you can enjoy it and it will explain all the markings that you’ll need to make to create a herringbone tile pattern. Then I gave my tiles a “dry run.” Without peeling off any backing I laid them out starting in the middle of the room and working my way out to the edges, trimming with heavy duty scissors as necessary. Then I got to work peeling and setting the tiles. After all of my tiles were set I used a rolling pin and ran it over all of the tiles to reinforce the “stick.” Next, I grouted following the manufacturer’s instructions and after cleaning off the excess grout I waited over night for the grout to dry and see my final result.

I am beyond thrilled with how this floor turned out. I think the dark color contrasts so nicely with the walls and plays well with our wood and black checkerboard floor in the next room. I replaced the baseboard trim around the room and had to add extra as there had been a wooden vanity in this space and there was no trim behind it.

I taped off my newly laid floor tiles and painted the trim to match the walls (China White by Benjamin Moore) . I also painted the doors to flow with the rest of the doors in the home which are painted Otter Brown, a Valspar color.

I’m so pleased with how this room is slowly transforming and I can’t wait to show you more as the makeover progresses. This DIY solution is such a great example of what great DIY’s are. They may not be the most fancy but they are small ways to tackle asethetic issues in our homes that I believe everyone can do. I hope you can be inspired to tackle some DIY solutions in your own home. Let me know in the comments what you are working on!