As I slouch through the kitchen for my hundredth time in one morning I actually notice the tiles beneath my feet, grubby and well past their sell by date. Never one to hold back on another DIY challenge I take baby monster to his favourite toy store....... Homebase.
Walking around the flooring area I realised I was going to be hard pushed to tile my kitchen on a budget, until I spotted the Essentials range, easy to miss in boring bland orange and white packaging. But as I wasn‘t going to use the box to walk on, I took a chance. There were several different patterns from blue to a wood effect. I chose 10 packs of "brick sand", (similar to natural and pale terracotta stones in a 9 tile mosaic effect) and considered my £22.90 very well spent. This worked out to be £2.29 per pack of 6 tiles which cover approximately 6sq.ft. They have a subtle sheen to them, reflecting light which is something
my kitchen rather lacks. They are hard, and slightly grainy to the touch, although that may be due to the dogs and three children/ dirt magnets running back and forth. They certainly don’t appear any less expensive than those that cost a fiver upwards, but no-one needs to know they were so cheap!
Anyone who knows me at all understands my belief in the "all rules are meant to be broken” rule. The destructions for laying the tiles are clearly written on the back of the box, giving perfect diagrams of how they are to be laid (Such as leave in a warm room for 24 hours, make sure floor is spotlessly clean etc). On ignoring all the destructions, my work began.
Box abandoned I gave my kitchen floor a swift sweep, and washed/ dried the floor with each new tile I laid. The tiles aren’t difficult to cut to size with a decent (ish) pair of scissors, bear in mind all the scissors in my drawers (oooer!) are used to cut paper, apples, bananas and hair! I think somewhere along the line, in a previous life, I fitted these for a living….. Or they really are THAT simple to lay! I soon had my fridge/ freezer out and tiled under, ditto my oven, dishwasher and washing machine. For cutting round awkward corners and door frames I used the backing from a previous tile. The paper is easy to mould around the obstructions, and mark accordingly, and can be used in abundance!!
In my effort to give a informative review my children decided that they would “test out” the new tiles.
Crisps… 1 packet of prawn cocktail left in the middle of the room, squashed in and trampled on until I noticed 10 minutes later. One very minor indentation, nothing noticeable except by the PMT’ing woman who carefully laid them hours previously.
Approximately 250ml orange juice carefully thrown on the floor by aforementioned baby monster, no staining or lifting of tiles. Both my dogs may have severe runs for a few days though, wonder how the tiles will fare up??!
1 lunch of savoury mince and potatoes (baby monster again). A quick wipe with water and a touch of Cif and it was history.
2 over-anxious dogs waiting for food, circling round my feet, drooling and generally getting over excited…. Nada, nothing, floor still looking lovely, if a little slippery!
3 children wandering in and out dragging each other around and around only cause the tiles to be warm and cosy underfoot!
To cover the whole of my kitchen, including removing and replacing appliances took less than 4 hours (although I do cheat and refuse point blank to tile where no-one will see that I missed some under cupboards etc.) A new floor has given my tired old kitchen a new lease of life, and seem to be fit for anything my family cares to throw at them, and in the 5 hours since being laid, that has been an awful lot.
It has been pointed out (fairly) that as it has been so soon after laying my new floor there isn't a lot I can rate them on. It's a fair comment, but if I don't write about them now, I shall never remember the finer points. And, in fairness, unless you actually look for these, they're easily missed, would hate anyone to miss a bargain. I shall try and remember to update in a few months which will provide probably a year of regular wear and tear. (It's a walkthrough house, lounge, dining room, kitchen, utility room and bathroom in that order) so my floors suffer a lot!!!
UPDATE 13th March Well, I rushed the whole DIY decorating through for my daughters birthday tomorrow. Maybe it wasn't such good idea to let Darling Hubby put away the groceries??!! One family sized GLASS jar of Dolmio perched dangerously at the front of the wall cupboard. When I opened the door it launched itself onto my new tiles. Excuse me while I continue to sob silently........ The result was two chips in my new tiles, luckily it is only on one tile, and will be cheap enough to replace. With the powers of velocity, gravity and suchlike (do I sound cleverer yet?) my darling new tiles had no chance; And now, I have no chance of DH ever putting away groceriess again!! Lesson to be learned by me.... Do It Yourself Lesson to be learned by DH..... Hell hath no fury like a PMT'ing woman scorned!
Pictures of Homebase DIY Flooring
absolutely flawless
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I was interested to read your review because we've been looking for kitchen flooring for a while and can't quite settle on what to get. We've got a Homebase near us and have looked there, but they didn't have what I'm after. Still, when you've got a minute, just pop round would you, and do mine? I might be going for slate rather than these, but sounds like you're a dab hand, so should be no problem! Enjoyed reading your review, Gill ;-)
Mar 11th, 2005
(Mar 13th, 2005)
very helpful by (96%):
helpful by (4%):
