Budget kitchen spruce up

[saraha]

So we are having a conversation with a guy about fixing some things around our house tomorrow as dh is still dealing with eye surgeries and we don’t know how long this will keep going. On my list are fixing a leak in the roof over our mud room, fixing the ceiling because of leak and replacing our linoleum. It is 40 years old and has holes and tears in it and looks dirty. Ive never been through a new flooring process and our budget is TIGHT, so probably thinking more linoleum. Does anyone have any experience?

I can give more details if needed.

Thanks!

eta: I have tried looking at Lowe’s website but for some reason linoleum looks like it goes from 49 cents a square yard to 46 dollars a square yard! I’m going to try to take the lead on this as dh is still recovering but have absolutely no idea what I’m doing or how to estimate costs.

Edited July 24, 2021 by saraha

[alisoncooks]

I would absolutely go look at what's in stock in the actual store. I think home improvement stores tend to have worthless websites. 

Lots of times, during sales, the flooring departments at Lowes or Home Depot have free measurement and/or installation.

A few years ago, we put linoleum in our master bath (Home Depot). I had a rough estimate of the square footage when I started looking (just length x width of the room), so I could quickly know what was out of budget. Then I went and looked at all the samples in person. 

The measurement dudes came out with handy digital devices and mapped out the space, then emailed the estimate. 

It was a pretty simple process. 

Edited July 24, 2021 by alisoncooks

[cjzimmer1]

We've had linoleum replaced in 4 different areas in our house in the last 2 years.  One thing you will have to consider is how many layers you currently have.  If you only have a single layer, most of the time, they can just install right over the existing (which saves money if you don't have to teat out the old stuff first).  However if you already have more layers you will have to tear out the old stuff.  Also if your current floor isn't relatively flat (which depending on the size of your holes may be an issue), you may need to install a new subfloor (we had to do this is one area and they just put it right over the current floor and then put the new floor on).  As to the flooring itself, well there are lots of choices as you know.  If you go the home improvement store, I would definitely stay away from the under $1.00 square foot stuff. It's very very thin.  But we did get a very nice Tarkett brand one from Menards for our bathroom.  We used a flooring store for 2 of the areas because one was a very large area and the other had tons of angles and my handyman wasn't comfortable doing those installs. Even if their prices are too high, everyone we talked to would come out and do free measurements/bids so you could at least use that as a starting place to get some idea of cost.  We had several places come out because we hadn't decided for sure on the product and then could compare prices too.

[alisoncooks]

Piggybacking in the above...

I pulled out all my old flooring so I didn't have to budget that in. I am fairly "house-handy" -- painting, tiling, demo -- but I wasn't comfy leveling floor compound and laying adhesive for the linoleum. I gather it's fairly simple in a perfectly square room...but I had lots of cut arounds.

The crew that came from Home Depot (contracted out, iirc) gave itemized bills, which was good because I caught errors. Our subfloor was perfectly fine and didn't need replacing, but they'd pre-purchased the wood and included it on the bill. Not a huge deal to resolve but did require my being knowledgeable about what they were doing and then going in to get it refunded.

[Soror]

We have linoleum in the laundry room.  I believe we got it at a discount hardware store. They had rolls of it we could pick out.  Ours was on the original build so no old layers. IIRC we laid it ourselves because it was a small room and we needed to save money. There was a roller to rent to make sure it is down smoothly. You want to make sure it doesn't bubble up anywhere.in our original house we had linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms too TBH I wish we had went with it again instead of the tile. We had that installed from wherever we bought it. 

[MEmama]

Some of the vinyl stick on floor tiles are really nice, and are definitely easier to install than linoleum. 
 

I have a friend who desperately needed an inexpensive, quick fix to a few areas of her kitchen (her husband had torn up their kitchen for a Reno but left it that way for 7 years). She used a heavy duty contact paper on her countertops, stick on subway tile over her backsplash, and wallpapered over bare insulation on an accent wall. It looks fantastic and will last awhile—not forever, but she loves the result so much she’s going to keep the fixes until they wear out. 
 

One thing that worries me about tearing up old linoleum is that it used to be made with asbestos. You don't want to find that out once you’ve started, especially on a budget.