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buying our new house was all fun and games until we realized essentially all of our floors would need to be redone in some way, shape, or form. I already had a clear idea of what I wanted to do for the mudroom on the first floor and potentially the kitchen as well.

We decided on vinyl tiles for our mudroom, and I really wanted these dark grey hexagon tiles that we found at Lowe’s for 99 cents per tile. We started doing research on durability, cost, and how easily we could do it ourselves. We were definitely trying to save costs where we thought was able and do things ourselves.

The hardest part was making sure we could get all of the materials for the project because Lowe’s wasn’t shipping the tiles anymore, so we had to take some trips and our family picked some stuff up for us too!

STEP 1: Assembling the materials

So for our flooring project we needed: the tile (obviously), tile spacers, a box knife to cut the tile, multi-floor adhesive, vinyl tile grout (we used slate grey), a metal trowel for the adhesive, rubber grout float (rubber trowel), paint scraper and a sponge. Make sure to calculate the amount of tile you need by the what the manufacturer recommends per square foot, but always get extra!! If you have strange corners or door frames you may have to cut some pieces into weird shapes and it’s always great to have backup.

STEP 2: Removing and Prepping the current floor

For us this meant pulling up some carpet in our mudroom and in the kitchen we had to take up two layers of old vinyl floors. We started our job in the mudroom because we pulled up the carpet and there was concrete underneath that made the application process MUCH simpler.

STEP 3: Start putting down the tile!

This part is fairly easy, but you’ll want to think about where you want to start and end your work. We started nearing our back door and worked our way towards our kitchen. This made sense because then we would have an escape route and wouldn’t mess up any of our tiles! We applied the adhesive to the ground in a small layer and a small layer to the tile as well. The tiles have adhesive on the backs but we wanted to make sure it was a strong bond! As we laid down the tiles we place 1/8 inch spacers in between to make sure we maintained a uniform distance in between. This was really hard at times with the hexagon tiles because if one direction was off slightly it would throw off everything else after that… Squares would’ve been a lot easier but we are so happy we fought through the work for the hexagons.

STEP 4: Grouting!

Luke was really the main layer of tile, grouting was my job. We let the tile sit for a full 24 hours and then some to really get set. Once that was done I broke out the vinyl tile grout, paint scraper, the rubber grout float, sponge and bucket of water for this part of the process. I would take the paint scraper and put grout in between the tiles. I would use the rubber grout float to initially scrape away the excess. Then I would wet the sponge and wring it out to then wipe away the extra grout that was left over. It took a ton of time because there were quite a few gaps to fill since we were working with the hexagons…

STEP 5: Enjoy a job well done

It was truly much easier than we thought. Some things I didn’t mention a ton was that you’ll have to cut around certain areas and you’ll have to cut the tiles to have a straight edge when you reach a door threshold. But it’s really super self explanatory! And it looks incredible when it’s all done 🙂 We are currently finishing up this same tile in our kitchen which should be done soon.

You can totally do vinyl tile yourself. If we could, you can too! There are tons of great videos on YouTube that you can watch too. It’s cheap, easy to do yourself, and will totally transform your space. Leave a comment below if you have questions or are planning to try this yourself!!

XOXO, Caro