Vinyl tile installation is so easy, you'll be floored

Vinyl floor tiles are an easy way to give a room a whole new look. They are fairly easy to install, tough in most applications and, when you do it yourself, can give your room a whole new look for not a lot of money. Here are the basic instructions for how to put them down.

Measure the room first. Multiply the length times the width. When you shop for tiles, you will find that they come in boxes with a certain number of square feet in each box. Use this to determine how many boxes you need.

When it comes to selecting your tiles, try to find ones that are self-adhesive. These are much easier to use. The choice of design is up to you. When you get your tiles home, let them sit in the room for a day to acclimate.

Make sure your current floor has been prepped. The surface needs to be smooth and clean. Make any repairs, and apply a floor leveler if you need to. If you have trim or shoe molding, remove it. Be careful with it if you plan to reinstall it after the floor is down.

Test the tile pattern by laying it down without using the adhesive. Try different patterns until you find one that you like and that won't require much trimming of the tiles. Mark the center of the floor or where the tiles will intersect near the center. Snap a chalk line or draw horizontal and vertical lines on the floor to use as a guide.

Peel off the adhesive covering on the back of the tile, and start laying your tiles from the center of the room, working your way to the edges of the room. Keep tiles placed tightly together so no gaps show.

To cut tiles at the edges of the room, carefully measure them and use a sharp utility knife. Keep in mind that some floors are not even, so measure each tile in three places. You can make a paper template for odd cutouts.

Use a heavy floor roller to apply pressure to the tiles for the best adhesion. Follow the manufacturer's recommendations for setup time.

You'll love the look and the ease of installation - so easy, it may floor you!

Cover ceiling fixtures - don't remove

Painting is fun. It's the prep work that's the hard part. One thing you have to deal with when painting ceilings is what to do with a ceiling fixture. It's best if you can take it down, but if not, see if you can find a garbage bag that is large enough to slip over the fixture, and then secure it at the ceiling. If it has glass globes or blades (in the case of a ceiling fan), remove these, then cover it. When your work of art is complete, you can just remove the garbage bag and be that much closer to the finished product!

Keep your hands clean

• When you are painting, gloves can prevent paint from sticking to your hands. It makes cleanup a lot faster, especially for taking short breaks or catching the phone when it rings. But if you don't have gloves, you can make "gloves" by just coating your hands with petroleum jelly. You even can coat your arms and keep them clean. When it's break time or the end of the day, just use soap and water to clean the grease and paint from your hands. You might even decide you like this better than gloves!

Super hints

• Brass screws are nicer-looking but not as tough as standard screws. Install a standard screw first, remove it and then install the brass screw. The standard screw will remove any rough spots that might damage a brass screw.

• A length of chain hung on a garage wall can be used to hang lots of items on. Use "S" hooks if you need to. Hang all of your pool toys, garden tools or any other items that can be hung up in this manner.

•I have so many cords under my desk for various electronic office things that my cat no longer can curl up at my feet. It's a real mess. I removed some and organized the rest by running them through an old leg of pantyhose with the toe cut out. I just ran all the cords through the nylon leg, and it keeps them all in one bundle. They barely show on the tan carpet, and now my cat is back in his favorite spot!

Q. We have new carpet in our bedroom, and the closet doors drag on it. They are bifold doors, and I'm not sure how to remedy this. What would you recommend?

A. Some doors can be adjusted at the floor simply by raising or lowering the small stabilizer. If that doesn't work, then you will need to take the doors down and trim them off. When you have them down, stack them so you can cut more than one at a time. Sand them smooth, and then just rehang them. That should take care of the problem.

Q. My oven doesn't seem to heat at the correct temperature. How do you calibrate or compensate for this?

A. Place an oven thermometer inside the oven and test the temp while cooking. See how far off it really is. Then you can contact your oven manufacturer to see if the oven can be recalibrated. If not, you may have to buy a new thermostat and install it. Usually this is fairly easy and inexpensive.

Q. I have a fluorescent light fixture in my closet that makes a loud buzzing noise. I would really like to see if I can fix this. What do I need to do or replace? Should I just replace the whole fixture?

A. Most of the time, the ballast is to blame for these noises. Cut the current to the fixture and remove the cover. The ballast is a rectangular box. See if you can remove it easily, and then take it to an electrical supply house and buy a replacement. If that doesn't work or if it's very expensive, you might have to replace the whole thing.

Reader tips

• We bought an older truck to keep at our ranch. It is in pretty good shape, but it has a lot of bumper stickers and decals on it. Some came off with water, and others had to be removed with a putty knife. But there still were some stubborn stickers that had to be removed. We spread mayonnaise over them and let the oil soak into the sticker. After a few hours, the oil did its job, and the stickers were much easier to scrape off. Now it looks good enough to go into town when we need to.

• Our washing machine broke down right before our summer vacation, but we decided to wait until we returned to have it serviced. Apparently the agitator wasn't the only thing that was going bad. One of the supply hoses burst and flooded our basement. When the repairman came out, he offered us some new hoses that are guaranteed not to burst for a lifetime. They were very inexpensive, and we could have bought them at the hardware store and saved ourselves a lot of cleanup. If you don't have these hoses, get some.

Hint: Or, shut the water off to appliances like this when you plan to be out of town for an extended period.

• When moving, I packed a lot of my things in large, rolling trash cans. These were strong enough to hold a lot of things, and I could easily move them around on the wheels. I even removed the contents of the cans when inside the new place, and then took the cans back outside to the truck to load them up again. It made things move along much faster, and without all the backaches.

• We moved the old shelf brackets to the garage to build some more storage out there. The brackets have hooks on the front that hold a closet rod. I put the shelves up and placed items on them, and hung things from the closet rod. It's a great storage system for us, and it was free, so it worked out really well.

• When we remodeled our bathroom, we had to take out a wall behind the bathtub. It had always been cold in the winter, and the water never stayed hot, so we stuffed a lot of extra insulation underneath and around the sides of the bathtub while we could get to it. I think this will help keep the tub insulated and will help the water stay warmer longer. It will help make it more comfortable, and it didn't cost us much since we had some extra insulation left over from the ceiling.

Shoptalk

• The Skil Power Cutter is a super way to cut through tough materials with ease. It's made to feel like a utility knife in your hand, but uses lithium-battery power to quickly and easily cut through vinyl flooring, carpet, leather, upholstery, plastic, rope and even small-gauge wire. The Auto Sharp Blade Design makes blade changes obsolete and ensures that you get precise, clean cuts every time. It's available at select Skil dealers. If you would like to learn more, you can see it online at skiltools.com.

•ArmorAll knows about detailing cars, and its new Utility Vac is a super detailing tool. It cleans up wet and dry messes, and is small and easy to carry around while you are cleaning your car or any other small messes. It comes with a nice eight-piece detailing kit, made to get into tight areas inside your automobile. It costs less than it would to hire someone to detail your car, too! Take a look at it and find a dealer near you by visiting cleva-na.com or call (866) 384-8432.

• Write to Al and Kelly Carrell in care of the Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006, or visit the Carrells' Web site at thesuperhandyman.com.

© 2009, Cowles Syndicate Inc.