Kitchen Floor

Our house has definitely reached that age where everything starts to break and need repaired. We've been dealing with a leak in a shower for almost a year. Tom tried to fix it several times to no avail. When the ceiling in the dining room started caving in from the leak, we knew it was time to really dig in and see what the problem was. My dad came over and he and Tom cut out a hole in the ceiling where the leak was and fixed the leak and then repaired the hole.

We have been noticing some discoloration coming through our kitchen floor for several months. We just thought it was the glue seeping through, which can happen when a floor starts getting old. While my dad was here helping repair the leak, he noticed the kitchen floor too and pulled back a tiny piece. The problem wasn't glue, it was MOLD! We had to replace our dishwasher a few months ago and that may have been when the problem started. So, we had to get a new kitchen floor. Not at all in the budget! I've never liked the floor in the kitchen since we moved into this house, but we weren't ready to take on this project right now. My thoughts are in gear for the kids' bedrooms and getting ready for the baby. However, I cannot have mold. That's not good for any of us.

This is the old kitchen floor, installed when they built this house about 13 years ago. It was glossy white, which showed every single piece of dirt. It may be kind of hard to see, but the dark discoloration splattered all throughout is the mold.

Last Saturday, my dad came over and he and Tom removed the old floor. The kids and I stayed out of the house all day. We were worried about breathing in mold. The plan was to remove the old floor and then radically clean the concrete and let it dry for about a week to make sure we got all the mold removed and it had no way to grow again. Come to find out when they began to remove the old floor, there were actually two layers of vinyl and the mold was between those two layers. None of it was on the concrete. I was so relieved because I didn't have to worry about any of us breathing in mold spores. They just removed both layers and threw it out. We still had to live on concrete for a week, which was no fun.

This past Saturday, Tom and my dad put down the new kitchen floor. It turned out to be a much bigger job than they anticipated. We chose vinyl tiles with a special grout made specifically for vinyl instead of ceramic. The grout was very difficult to install, but it has turned out beautiful! I love it.