We have a rental house in the Atlanta area and no matter how hopeful we are about the tenants moving in they always seem to tear something up. This time it was the carpet, paint, some interior doors, a few holes in the wall, and the linolium in the bathroom.
So I decided that I am going to learn from the experience and persevere in the rental business. While between tenants I am going to replace the linolium in the bathrooms and kitchen with tile. I am also considering putting laminate flooring in the rest of the house instead of carpet.
So here are a few pictures of the first bathroom. This shows the floor once I removed the baseboard, toilet, sink, and linolium and with one piece of backer board put down. The other picture is after the tile has been laid and grouted but before baseboard, toilet, and sink has been put back in.
Tiling is really not that hard if you are at least somewhat handy. I reccomend:
A book called Tiling 1-2-3 available at Home Depot. It is almost “how to tile as illustrated by pictures”. A mans book, it is fantastic.
A cheap wet tile saw. HD has one for about $80. It’s worth it and if you are like me you will dig it out and use it again in 5 years.
Patience in planning. Once you get your backer board down take your time to carefully plan how you will arrange the tiles, where you will have full tiles and where you will have cut tiles, etc think about how to hide small pieces on walls covered by the toilet and vanity, etc. In my case I am going to use a piece of quarter round trim in front of the baseboard to avoid having to cut a tiny piece of tile. The trim will cover the gap. I laid out EVERY tile in the bathroom including the spacers between the tiles and precut every tile so all I had to do was lay them. It was less stressful to get the “thinking part” out of the way up front.
Tiling is quite rewarding when you are done and will last pretty much forever. When done, I will feel more confident about the care of my rental since it will now be more durable.
