Story Time: I Tried Peel & Stick Tiles and Whew Chile………

Gather round, the elder wants to tell a story…

Honey grab a glass of wine and get into this story time! So one of my goals when putting together my new home was to have a bomb ass kitchen. Nobody wants to wait until they finally become a home owner (if that is what they want,) to build their dream space. There are plenty of renter friendly hacks that one can do to achieve this goal.

Picture it: August 2021, in my apartment. I am scrolling through Instagram while ignoring every other task that needs to be done in the house, when I come across a post talking about peel and stick tiles. Now imagine my surprise, as I a mere mortal in the home décor world, had never heard of this amazing product. I mean I was baffled, befuddled, and bewildered. How has this not reached the same level of stardom and fame as any Kardashian, I will never know. So naturally I do what any responsible millennial adult would do, I stopped my payment to AT&T and searched nonstop for the perfect peel and stick tile for my kitchen. Finally I found the perfect tile on Amazon, black and white checkered pattern. Thanks to Amazon’s 2-day delivery, I was able to spend a Sunday afternoon putting these floors down. They’re perfect! Everything is great, right?

Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no…

Everything was not great. As the month went on a few things changed. The first being my design vision for the kitchen. Around the middle of the month I found this beautiful rug that went perfectly with my kitchen island. But I noticed that it was competing with the floors for attention. Another issue that I quickly realized is that the prep I did for this kitchen was shitty af. When doing something like this you have to truly SCRUB your floors, like get on your hands and knees style. What started as slight, slivers of gaps on the tiles, turned into gaps so huge that a my big toe was getting stuck on the adhesive because the tiles were sliding so much.

So recently after some careful consideration, I decided that the tiles didn’t serve me any purpose anymore and decided to pull them up to return them (thank God for a 30 day return window!). Now comes the fun part, the cleaning. Oh boy was this a pain in my ass! Instead of galivanting around town on a Friday night like Carrie Bradshaw, I stayed home and pulled these tiles and scrubbed the floors. After waking up the next morning and almost having the skin ripped off the bottom of my foot from the adhesive, I quickly learned that not everything should be purchased on Amazon, as the adhesive remover I purchased on the site was not the what it was supposed to be. A quick Target run to get even more supplies to get the correct adhesive remover and I was able to put some elbow grease into the floor and finally get the adhesive up.

So what have we learned….

Do your research and read some articles before you just start doing things! I was so gung-ho to start this that I probably should’ve read a little bit more before I just started slapping stuff on the floors. Another thing I have learned is to make sure you have some kind of vision! Sometimes it works when you do something and then you build a room around that, but not always. Had I waited just a moment I would’ve realized these particular floors weren’t right for me. Would I use peel and stick tiles again? The answer is yes! Now knowing what the proper steps are, I would absolutely do this again, just not anytime soon, cause my back is still aching! I have my eye on a new set of tile, that are more neutral, which allow me to continue to have fun and experiment with colors. See my kitchen vision board below!

Still under construction! Recently purchased this rug as a runner to compliment the island.

Another vision! Stay tuned for more!