VINYL TILE…IN A CABINET? LET’S GET CRAZY!

Sooooo… Ben is the greatest guy. He thinks of the most awesome ideas. Today’s post is inspired by his research and ingenuity. So far in the kitchen we have demo’d the countertops and backsplash, repaired and painted the walls/ceiling and sanded and painted the cabinets. Up next. Vinyl floor tiles. But…. Not on the floor. Crazy talk. I know.

The previous owners had put down contact paper on all cabinet shelves and in the drawers. For those of you that might not know what contact paper is, it’s the rolls of plastic sticky paper that you can use to protect shelves and drawers. It’s not super bad if you deal with the corners and not let them peel up. The problem is that the paper gets air bubbles and crumbs get on the sticky part and it’s a big hot mess. It looks great for about a year then terrible.

Ben and I were able to remove the paper on the shelving pretty easy. The shelves are made of wood that has a sealer on it so the slipperyness of the wood made for a good peeling surface. We then used a big bottle of Goo Gone to get any residual old glue or paper off of the shelves. I wiped them down with a damp towel after to make sure no Goo Gone was left on the shelves.

The bottoms of the cabinets and drawers were another story. They weren’t stained as nicely as the shelves. We were able to remove all of the contact paper and most of the glue but there were a lot of icky areas.

We needed a creative solution for the bottoms of the cabinets and drawers. This is where Ben the idea man comes in. He researched the interwebs to find something maintenance free and wipeable. The peel and stick vinyl tile was born. They are meant as a cheap floor tile that would look ok in a laundry room or some basement area…or inside a cabinet. You peel away the protective coating to expose the sticky side and press it down on the floor or… in the drawer or bottom shelf.

We picked white 12”x12” tiles. We were able to buy them in 25 tiles/box and a few extra. We measured the surface area of the cabinets to get the square feet of tiles. We paid about $0.50 a tile. So $0.50 per square foot. Our cabinets are about 15” deep so we had a lot of 3” sliver cuts to cover the whole cabinet surface. We put the small pieces in the back to reduce visual seams. As architects we can appreciate the need for things to be equally spaced within the surface area. We decided that it was better to use full tiles than to make a lot of cuts to make the seams symmetrical.

We made sure the shelves/drawers were as clean as possible before laying down the tiles. No crumbs or dust or the tiles will have a hard time sticking. The floor tiles were pretty easy to install. They are thicker than the contact paper so they hide any imperfections in the cabinets pretty well. You can cut them using a sharp utility blade and a metal straight edge. For the straight edge I recommend using a t square or angle so everything is cut at 90 degrees.

We used vinyl tile but I think you could use other types of flooring as well. What is great about vinyl is that you don’t have to refinish it or add adhesive. When you are looking for a product like this look for something that is already sticky on the back and doesn’t have to be finished once it’s installed. Most big home improvement stores carry vinyl tile or something similar.

This looks really great. One thing we struggled with is where to stop the tile in the cabinets. We decided to stop it a little short of the edge so that the doors have ample room to close. One thing we didn’t think about was where the magnets for the closers needed to be installed. They ended up half on the tile and half off in some locations. It doesn’t change the way the magnets function but for us perfectionists, it can be a little annoying.

I will be writing about the hardware, closers and hinges in a future blog. That deserves its own post because of the epic successes and failures that happens when we try to match up hardware on cabinets that are 60 years old. Stay tuned!

Check out the house tour to see the kitchen progress.

Recent posts:
SANDING, REPAIRING, & PAINTING OUR KITCHEN CABINETS
KITCHEN TILE AND COUNTERTOP DEMOLITION! ASH SMASH!