Replacing tile floor and tile countertops

[skuttle]

DH and I are starting the process of buying a house. Right now we're just looking online to get some ideas as we've just contacted one mortgage company so far and are waiting to hear from them.

Right now we rent a house with tile floor in the kitchen and bathroom and tile countertops in the kitchen. I just finished cleaning the kitchen and it has affirmed my hatred of tile! It's so hard to clean, IMO! Don't get me wrong, I rather have tile floor than carpet, but I still don't like it!

How hard is it to replace a tile floor? Can you put hardwood or pergo right on top of it? Or do you have to actually remove the tile? Some houses we've looked at have tile throughout. I can deal with tile in the kitchen and bathroom, but don't think I can handle tile throughout. My inlaws house has tile throughout (except in bedrooms) and I really don't like the look of it at all.

Also, what about tile countertops? How hard is that to replace? I think I hate the tile counters more than the floor!

Is this something we can do ourselves? DH is a teacher, so he'll have some free time during summers (not *too* much since he's a music teacher, but still enough time to do some projects).

Thanks! I don't think the flooring or counters would make me say "no" to an otherwise nice house, especially if I know I can change it. I just don't want to get "stuck" with tile and then constantly complain about it!

 

[Keli]

Because I don't know a whole lot about construction my answer will only be somewhat helpful but I do know that if all tile countertops are like my mother's then they are fairly simple to replace.

 

[skuttle]

Thanks! I don't know much about it either. I know the tile counter in my kitchen now looks just like the floors do. lol! Not sure what that means.

 

[Disneycrazymom]

It depends on what the tile is set into. Some tile floors (mostly in a slab or an older house) are set in concrete. You can get them out but it is ALOT of work! We took one out, I literaly had to chisel up the concrete piece by small piece. It took forever. Then we had to sand and level the sub floor underneith. I now have pergo and I am very glad we did it as I like the new floor much better. A counter top would be much easier as you could just sledge hammer the whole thing. A new counter is all one piece so you don't need the underlayment of the old one. Good luck finding the perfect house!

 

[golfgal]

Because Pergo is a floating floor, it most likely can be installed right over the tile as long as the tile is flat or pretty flat. You probably won't be able to put real hardwood over the tile because that is nailed into the floor.

 

[KimWDW]

You can put Pergo right over it. Pergo looks nice, I love it.

 

[skuttle]

I'm so glad to hear there's a chance that we can just put pergo on top! I was starting to get worried! We'd probably go with pergo since this will be our first house and not our "forever" house. Thanks!

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

We just remodeled a kitchen (with tile on the island and backsplash) and a bathroom, with tile on the floor.

IMO, it was MUCH easier to remove the tile on the counters, and I'm assuming it was because the tile was set on top of plywood. However, trying to remove it from the backsplash wasn't so simple. We ended up having to replace the backerboard behind it.

The tile on the floor wasn't so hard to remove, but the mortar that it was laid in was a BIG pain in the rear to remove. DH had to literally chisel it off, bit by bit.