What kind of flooring to put on top of the old tiles?
We bought a house and want to update the flooring on the first floor. The tile is from the 80's and we don't like it very much. The floor itself is level, and the tile is still technically fine. The big question now is what is the best way to "put it back in place"? Cutting it out is just too much work and dirt. The first idea is to put a new tile on top of it. However, in the living room. In the balcony door area, and that could lead to problems.
So, the choices are as follows:
-Tile on tile and, if necessary, at least putty the living room.
-Laying high quality click vinyl over tile
The advantage of vinyl flooring is that if you don't like it anymore, you can replace it after 10 years or so.
It's relatively easy to replace... Does anyone have any ideas/advice/help in making decisions?
Answer
As an owner (not as a renter), you have every opportunity to expand, as long as the height of the connections (with neighboring components and/or rooms) is not exceeded.
The question is how much money you want to spend and how long the floor will last without major repairs.
What I mean is this: with a little money, you (unprofessionally) install PVC in the form of planks over tile, perhaps with a roller fixing so it doesn't pop right away. And rejoice in the new floor for only a few months, which will increasingly have a life of its own; especially since the grout pattern of the old tiles will show up more and more on the new PVC flooring.
With a little more effort, the tiles are cleaned, sanded and primed, and then troweled with a 2mm flat trowel. After that, you can choose anything you like as a coating. No more troweling afterwards!
One of the most expensive, but high quality solutions can be to coat the surface with a decorative synthetic resin, which should be suitable for interiors (most of them are today).
Here you have an infinite number of possible options, from monochrome, with colored chips (flakes) to multi-colored unique floors, made on the principle of interlocking.
The construction height for all the options: about 3 mm to 5 mm.
These are just a few examples that I would like to list just for guidance.
In the "tile on tile" variant you can only work with reactive resin adhesive! The minimum installation height here is 13-15 mm.
