LESLIE: Now we’re talking to Walt in Florida. You’re thinking about tiling your floor. Tell us about what’s down there now and what you want to do.
WALT: Yeah, what I have now, I have linoleum down in the kitchen.
LESLIE: OK.
WALT: And I was thinking could I take tile and put it over that?
TOM: Sure. Are you talking about ceramic tile or vinyl tile?
WALT: Ceramic.
TOM: Well, you don’t want to glue directly to the linoleum because it’s not going to stick. What you’re going to want to do is put in ¼-inch luan plywood first as an underlayment. So this is thin plywood that’s put down with – make sure you use ring nails to put it down …
WALT: Alright.
TOM: … which have little grooves in them so they don’t pull back out.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: And then on top of that, you can go ahead and glue the tile down and grout it from there. But you don’t want to put the tile right on top of the linoleum.
LESLIE: But also, you want to think about since it’s your kitchen and you’ve got a lot of big appliances in there, you want to make sure that you don’t trap any of those appliances in their place by putting the tile, you know, right up to, say, the dishwasher or the oven; especially if something is built in under the countertop like the dishwasher is. So you want to make sure that you pull it out, put the tile all the way under and then adjust the legs so that the dishwasher will fit right back in there. And even go ahead and tile under the fridge. You know, move it out; put that tile down; make everything uniform.
WALT: Perfect. You made my day.
TOM: Alright, Walt. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.
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