Pavers as Kitchen Flooring - Comments
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I have bricks on my floors and have sealed them with Thompson's waterseal. What can I put on them to make them shine? Thank you.
phyllis at July 4, 2008 10:51 AM
Posted by: phyllis at July 4, 2008 10:51 AMHi Phyllis, I've never used Thompson water seal myself, so I don't know what other products would be compatible with it. There should be a phone number on the container that you can call and ask them.
The Flooring Lady at July 4, 2008 04:16 PM
Posted by: The Flooring Lady at July 4, 2008 04:16 PMWe want to use brick pavers in on kitchen. We have found them at Lowes, can you recommend any other stores that carry them? What kind of moisture barrier were you talking about with Liz? Also, can you ever use pavers on walls or as trim decorative work, or does it look tacky? Thanks, Linde
Linde Dean at July 20, 2008 08:25 PM
Posted by: Linde Dean at July 20, 2008 08:25 PMHi Linde!
There are many companies that make brick pavers - I'd suggest using a search engine like Google and type in brick pavers manufacturer and see what kind of hits you get - or even just type in brick pavers. Most of the manufacturer's websites will have a link somewhere showing where you can buy them. Lots of stores have pavers, Home Depot, True Value, etc.
There's different kinds of moisture barriers you can use, it just depends on your situation. You didn't mention if your kitchen sits on a concrete base, if you have a crawl space or what. I really think you should read up on the Moisture Proofing and Sealing Basement Floors sections of the site.
Yes, you can use pavers as trim - it can be a little tricky since you're putting them on vertical surface though. I couldn't tell you if it'd look tacky or give you a case of 'over-kill' though since I don't know how your kitchen is set up. It would probably be best to lay the floor first and then decide. You could always take a photo of your kitchen with the new flooring down and draw in where you'd want the paver accents to be (or do it in a computer photo editor program!) - it should give you a better idea of how it'd look and you could then decide from there.
The Flooring Lady at July 21, 2008 12:40 AM
Posted by: The Flooring Lady at July 21, 2008 12:40 AMHi Liz,
Our house sits 32" off the ground and I wanted to put brick pavers in our laundry room/rear entrance, what do I need to know about this?
Christina at August 7, 2008 07:57 AM
Posted by: Christina at August 7, 2008 07:57 AMHi Christina,
Well, first of all I would think that you need to make sure your floor joists are strong enough to support the additional weight. If not, they'll need to be beefed up.
Moisture is always a problem for brick - you'll need to make sure you seal it really, really well and it doesn't hurt to put a coat on before the floor is laid - it'll make it easier to remove the grout haze after it's been laid, before you put the final sealer on it. Do you have a moisture barrier of some kind on top of the dirt in the crawlspace and running up part of the 'wall' of the crawl space? It's always a good idea to do so - that way water vapor can't degrade the joists.
Search around on this site and using a search engine to find out about problems that others have had and what solutions were used. In short, I guess my best answer would be to educate yourself as much as possible before you start the project.
The Flooring Lady at August 7, 2008 11:41 AM
Posted by: The Flooring Lady at August 7, 2008 11:41 AMHi, My husband and I gathered thousands of brick pavers from a road demo, can we use these in our kitchen. They have been stacked up outside for a couple of years, and I we need a new kitchen floor. Our foundation is concrete slab. Any suggestions on sites on how to install? Thanks
sharon
Sharon at August 31, 2008 09:41 PM
Posted by: Sharon at August 31, 2008 09:41 PMHi Sharon, Visit Lowe's or Home Depot websites, they probably have some DIY instructions there. You can always Google too of course........
The Flooring Lady at September 1, 2008 08:56 PM
Posted by: The Flooring Lady at September 1, 2008 08:56 PMHi Flooring Lady, I have brick pavers in my kitchen, laundry room and pantry-the grout and pavers were very stained and dirty when I bought the house-I have tried everything I can think of to clean the grout and pavers-do you have any suggestions? thanks Nancy
nancy cleveland at October 11, 2008 02:44 PM
Posted by: nancy cleveland at October 11, 2008 02:44 PM
Hi Nancy,
You might want to try a product like StainSolver - it works better than OxyClean because it's got more bleaching action - though it won't bleach out your concrete - just the dirt. It may not work on everything, but it's a good product to start with and doesn't cost very much. I have an old 'family van' that has really been abused over the years, my first mistake was not setting any rules about eating or drinking in the van, didn't worry about since it wasn't new and I figured the kids would naturally be careful. Hah! The rug had literally gotten disgusting, so over the weekend I got out my StainSolver and mixed it up with hot water and it worked wonders! Dummy me should have used a wet-vac, but towel-blotting it worked well. Anyhoo, the point I'm trying to make is that I'll bet it works well on your floor.
After you get it cleaned as best as you can, you'll definitely want to seal it. Brick is so porous and dirt literally gets into the brick. You can check for yourself to see if it's still sealed by putting drops of water on the brick - if it beads up - it's sealed, if it soaks in, then obviously it's not. If it turns out that it is still sealed, the StainSolver will still help clean it. Hopefully, you wouldn't have to resort to stripping the brick and resealing. Another thing to note is that if it's sealed (or still sealed here & there), you'll still probably need to strip it because you wouldn't know what kind of a sealer was put on it before and you can't mix different types of sealers. Yeah, I know........ oh joy! Look forward to the fact that once you get it all squared away, maintaining your floor will be much easier.
The Flooring Lady at October 12, 2008 11:31 AM
Posted by: The Flooring Lady at October 12, 2008 11:31 AMComment Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
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