Inquiry for home improvement types

[costi]

My wife and I need to "clean up" the kitchen floor by either removing the small patches of paint that are on it, or covering it with an easy to place, not-expensive covering. What say you all?

The first thing tha I noticed in your post was that you sounded as if you want to follow an inexpensive route. If that is the case, then the answer most likely is to remove the paint from it. If you was the one that splattered the paint, do you still have the can so you can look on the label for the remover?
If not, it may be a bit of a trial and error and several of the previous posters have recommended products that may work. I would suggest though that you try any of these products sparingly and as per precautions on the can, best tried in an inconspicuous area in case a reaction occurs with the flooring material which may look worse than the paint drops.
I don't know what design or vintage your house is, but this may come into play if you decide to change out your flooring. Will the new flooring match the house? Also, thickness of the new flooring may be of consideration as far as refrigerators or dishwashers fitting under cabinets if you do not wish to remove the old floor . and "simply go over it".
I see a lot of people use the "Pergo style" floors these days. They are quite easy to put down IMO and if you are in any way adequate with home repair projects, following the directions or taking a few hints from flooring installers you could most likely get through installing it yourself.
The main problem that I can see with you as a home owner installing it yourself though is that if you pay the extra for a "professional" to install it, you are covered by a quarantee of workmanship, where if you install it, you are limited.
For what it is worth, I personally don't like the "feel" of these floors, but that is only my feeling. Some do Look nice.
Without seeing it, my opinion is that ceramic tile looks nice but requires a lot of prep work and can get expensive, I don't care for the "fake engineered wood floors" because of feel, peel and stick vinyl squares are an easy fix but I question the quality of them, which leaves me with vinyl floor covering(linoleum) as my final answer for replacement. They also seem to hold up quite well under the conditions of tracking in snow, ice, and water (as we seem to be doing quite a bit of over here in Southern Maine lately).
I rambled on a bit, but I hope this helps. Feel free to give me a p.m. if you have any questions.
Good luck,
Bob

 

[do it easy]

You could also strategically paint the spots away- urban camoflage, in a sense.

 

[crlavoie]

My wife and I need to "clean up" the kitchen floor by either removing the small patches of paint that are on it, or covering it with an easy to place, not-expensive covering. What say you all?

Goof Off is available at Home Depot and will remove any "basic house paint" - oil or latex. In the event that you have a vinyl composite tile (VCT as they call it in the trade) you will want to test it. If you leave the GO too long or rub too much, it might leave a burnish mark or discoloration in the area.

Chances are, it will work fine. FYI... if you know it's latex it WILL come off with soapy water and a lot of elbow grease.

 

[redrover]

I still don’t get what kind of floor, what is s a semi-hard tile?

Sounding possibly a paving or Mexican tile, I’ve got it along my entry. Rough, unevenish and unglazed. Nice but is absorbent. If a latex paint on it I’d guess unable to remove – stains from the latex. Pretty much anything stains it – it’s absorbent. I’d worry about any petroleum product just making the problem different at best but more likely worse. Goo Gone (marvelous stuff) or any other solvents should get anything off a glazed tile. Maybe an initial direction could be get to a library or book store and look for home repair books and look for solutions to cleaning.

If it’s an unglazed ceramic, is there an out of the way location you can try sanding and see if it works? I’m thinking with some the sanding could be blended in somewhat artfully.
Slate is not all that hard of a tile nor glazed, porcelain tiles are hard. I’m guessing the paint cannot be scraped off as in a glazed tile. Apparently not either if you mean vinyl types…well how much paint? Can the tiles be replaced – extras? If a vinyl have you tried a plastic spackle knife?

Covering a ceramic type tile is not real easy and removing it is really a pain. A vinyl tile is covered very easily – if the floor is even.

The pergo type stuff – at least some (I am looking at what to replace carpet with in my home LOL) say they can cover tile – as long as the floor is even. It is not attached to the floor but ‘floats’. A consideration is still how even the floor is relating to the under-padding. The easiest ones come with the underlay attached. It’s cheaper to lay it down separate.
To work out the price to recover: Calculate square footage and add 10% (more if a lot of breakups in the floor layout, diagonals or odd nooks etc. Take that to the Lowe’s or Home Depot places and figure the costs. Check for the expected lifetime of the kinds – sometimes even the particular styles – and factor in how long it needs to last. For example if recovering to sell, the cheapest and if living there forever, go with the best quality you can afford.

 

[divad]

and if that doesn't work, call it modern art and claim you paid mega bucks for it

WRONG. Just wrong................. write yourself a grant.











"No grants for modern dance."

 

[RonDawg]

Funny you ask...I was in Lowe's last night, picking up some new plantation shutters, when I decided to stop by the floor covering area.

There are some pretty neat options available nowadays. For the kitchen, I'm interested in Armstrong's "glueless" vinyl sheet flooring. The stuff appears to be twice as thick as normal vinyl flooring, and I guess that's how it keeps its shape. I am concerned though that over time the floor will eventually stretch and thus "pockets" will form beneath, especially during LA's warm summers.

I also went over to the DIY wood flooring section. I was really surprised how far laminate flooring has come. Some of it still looks pretty cheesy, but I found some relatively inexpensive stuff that looks surprisingly good for the price.

 

[O2BBubbleFree]

... and stop painting things in the kitchen...


Had to be said

 

[divad]

I put burl patterned cork flooring over my parents linoleum kitchen floor and they love it because it's warm and cushiony. You can get it on line for around $3.50 a sq foot, and off line for about $8.00. It's beautiful, tough, renewable (they don't kill the trees) and has a high R-value, so..............great bang for the buck.