Temporary "Peel and Stick on" Floor Tiling that is easy to do, looks great and lasts!!

Ugh do you see how dirty it would get!? One of the tiles had just been scrubbed and the other needed to be scrubbed, but a week later they would all look like the one on the right again! 

Last year, I moved into a one bedroom on New York's Upper East side. The apartment looked slightly dated, but I thought it was a reasonable price for the space so I went for it. The one thing I couldn't stand though was the gross tiling in the kitchen. It was black and white checkered linoleum that was old so no matter how many times I scrubbed it, it never looked clean.

I was willing to re-tile it and asked my landlord if it was fine to re-tile it. You would think they'd love for tenants to make improvements, but they said I wasn't allowed. I guess they've been burned in the past with half-finished DIY projects from other tenants. So I found out there is something called Vinyl Plank Flooring from Home Depot.

It's basically a strip of what looks like three tiles with an adhesive section so that tiles can attach to each other rather than the floor underneath. You can just lay them on top of your existing floor so if your landlord ever complains they can be easily removed!

To do the project, you need a few tools. First, you obviously need a few boxes of the plank flooring. There are a bunch of different color/ style options at Home Depot. One $50 box covers 24 square feet. It took just over 3 boxes to complete my kitchen (my kitchen is tiny). You also need a utility knife (the only slightly difficult part of this project is cutting the planks to fit into your space). Last, I needed a hammer (used the back) to pull up the transition strip between my tile and hardwood floors prior to tiling.

It took my boyfriend and I about four hours of solid effort to finish our kitchen.

Here's my step-by-step:

1. Remove everything from your kitchen and detach any transition strips.

2. Start in one corner laying the plank down.

3. Press the next plank onto the adhesive strip, making sure they are pressed as close together as possible. You CANNOT lift it once pressed down so lower it slowly and carefully to ensure a tight fit.

4. Continue on until you've reached any edges where the tile is too big to be fit into a space. You then need to measure and and see how much of the plank you need to cut off with your utility knife. This can be pretty challenging. My boyfriend was using some serious muscle to get it done. You also need to cut around strange edges like around appliances (around my oven was a bit tough).

5. Reattach the transition strip - you're done!

6. If the landlord ever complains, remove the tiling and reveal the previous floor undisturbed!