The Smallest of Home Repairs

The flooring in our family room is AWFUL. It's 30+ year old cheap vinyl self stick tile. It's supposed to look like parquet, but is just pretty much brownish. And it is now really brittle with age, and in areas of high traffic, it has cracked, broken, and left small holes.

Under my computer chair, it has left a BIG hole. Lovely, bare, pebbly concrete.

My router up and died recently, and when I realized the Verizon guy would have to sit in my computer chair, I decided to fix the hole in the floor. (The hole has been there for at least 5 years!) Luckily, my Mother put aside scrap pieces when we installed the tile in 1973.

So, in case anyone ever has to patch lousy vinyl tile, here is my step by step method:

Step one: When you install any tile, carpet, wallpaper, paint, linoleum, or vinyl flooring, whatever, SAVE SOME SCRAPS. (Thanks, Mom)

Step two: Clean the area. That's the photo above. That's as clean as I could get it. I hate this floor.

Step three: I took tape and sort of marked the extent of the hole, making it a squared off area. I should have taken a photo. Bad me.

I laid the scrap on top of the hole, and drew cut lines on it that would cover the whole area to be patched, nice and square-ish. Then I cut the patches with a utility knife. (My space was over two tiles, plus two thin strips on adjacent tiles.)

You place the finished patches in their places, on top of the damaged floor, and TRACE THE OUTLINE onto the damaged flooring. Move the patches, and cut out the squared out hole. (That is the second photo.) Now the patches will fit.

Step whatever: So this last photo is the stunningly wonderful result. It looks much better, even though the patch is newer looking. Why did I wait five years to fix this?? I guess it's because the floor is still UGLY. It's only technically an improvement.

On a different topic altogether, I've done a makeover on the frog garden ornament that I use for my avatar here. I've always hated the paint on it, so I sanded it, and ground off the worst of the cast concrete seams. Then I puttied the worst of the holes and mis-cast areas with epoxy putty. I primed it with Zinsser's 123, and painted it with enamel paint to look like AN ACTUAL FROG. It looks much happier now. Here are the before and after photos:



Before. After. What was with the red lips??? Here's my new avatar. Much nicer