New (Non-Poisonous!) Basement Floor

A few weeks ago, I shared an update on our basement floor: how we had some portions of the asbestos floor abated, and how we moved everything into one corner to prepare for a new floor to go down.

Now I’m excited to share that we have a brand new floor, and it’s not a health hazard!

Before I share the final reveal, I thought I’d share a bit about how I found a professional to install it, and how I picked the material.

First, picking the material. In my first basement flooring post, I talked about why I picked VCT tile for the corner of the basement that I tiled myself: it’s durable against spills and dragging heavy furniture (both of which are known to happen in our basement), and it’s pretty affordable (the tiles I laid myself were $.66 per square foot from Lowes). Thus even though I knew there were some other “less industrial” looking options (like luxury vinyl plank flooring), I really wanted a workhorse floor whose primary purpose is to stand up to wear and tear — so I decided to stick with the VCT option for the rest of the basement too. That would also make it a tad less noticeable that one corner was done separately….

Second, finding a professional. When I decided I didn’t want to put the new floor down myself, I decided to turn to Thumbtack. Thumbtack is a website where you can submit your project needs, and then get a bunch of experts to bid on the job. It’s how we found someone to build our deck last spring, and I think it’s a really convenient way to find someone to do a specific home job. One thing I really like about it is that contractors can be really hard to get a hold of in our area — whenever I proactively reach out to contractors I find on places like Angie’s List, I only get a call back or two. But on Thumbtack, the whole point is that the message goes out to dozens of pro, and then those who are interested respond to you — so it cuts down on how many individual emails/calls you need to make in order to get responses. Then you can research the ones who respond to read reviews and compare quotes (Thumbtack has reviews, and you can also cross reference places like Angie’s List). I’ve just found it to be a lot quicker and easier to find well-reviewed professionals who actually seem to want to do the job.

Once I had a few quotes I liked, I arranged for two different pros to come by the house to take a look and provide a more accurate estimate. Both were well-reviewed on Thumbtack (with lots of reviews and photos of finished results), and both had initial quotes in the ballpark of $1,000 – $1,500 for labor (supplies on top of that).

I liked both of the guys who came to the house, but here’s how I ultimately made the decision:

1. Contractor #1 suggested skim coating the entire floor first before installing the tile in order to get a nice flat finish. Contractor #2 felt that it was only necessary to patch in the spots where the old tiles had been removed. I knew from tiling the first corner of the basement that the floors are definitely uneven, even where no tiles are missing — and those imperfections really show through the new tile. So I liked the idea of a full skim coat.
2. Contractor #1 was willing to move any furniture that we couldn’t move ourselves, and work across the basement in stages over a few days. Contractor #2 charged for each piece of furniture moved, and wanted us to get everything into the finished corner so that he could do the rest of the basement all at once. I just wasn’t sure if that would be feasible, and even though the base price for Contractor #2 was cheaper so the cost to move furniture might still have come in cheaper, I liked the idea of an all-in-one price that we could count on.
3. Contractor #1 would buy all the materials (skimcoat, tiles, adhesive), whereas Contractor #2 recommended that we buy it ourselves. Along with that, Contractor #1 showed us swatches that he had with us of a few different options he liked working with (VCT tile and Vinyl Tile). Granted Contractor #2 was willing to buy it for us for an upcharge (which I’m sure Contractor #1 also factored in), but I liked that Contractor #1 had some products that he was familiar with and would just seamlessly take care of all the material procurement.

At the end of the day, Contractor #1 quoted us $2,300 — $1,500 for labor, and $800 for supplies. Contractor #2 quoted us $700 for labor (remember, that wouldn’t include a full skim coat), plus $50 for every furniture piece moved and then supplies that we’d buy ourselves. I estimated that we would probably have at least 9 pieces of furniture that we’d need him to move (washer, dryer, fridge, 2 work benches, 2 large shelves, 2 large pieces of gym equipment), so that would add $450 to the cost. Plus, since I suspected that we wouldn’t be able to get everything into the finished corner and he’d need to work in chunks, I thought he might need to move those 9 pieces multiple times, so that could quickly add to the cost.

Thus while we could have gone with Contractor #2 and saved about $800 on labor and maybe a few hundred dollars on supplies if we’d been able to move all the furniture ourselves and gotten the supplies ourselves without a contractor markup, it seemed like realistically we would need to have a few pieces of furniture moved around, we liked the idea of having all the supply purchasing and transport taken care of for us (VCT tiles, skim coat, and adhesive are HEAVY), and I thought the end result would be better with a full skim coat not just patching. Right now, convenience is worth a little bit more money to us. So that’s how we decided to go with Contractor #1, despite the higher all-inclusive pricetag.

I picked out a light blue (“seaspray”) VCT tile that he’d shown me in his collection of swatches, since I thought this would match as much as possible with the flooring I’d already laid, that it would be nice and light, but that the color variation would also help hide dirt.

After that, we prepped the basement like I shared a few weeks ago, moving as much as we could into the corner where I’d already finished the floor.

The other thing I did once all the furniture was moved was roll a single coat of white paint onto the walls. As you may recall when I laid the new floor in the back corner, I painted that corner of the basement at the time. I figured now was the time with all the furniture moved and no worries about dripping on the old floor to finish the job, so I took a few hours to bang it out. The walls are in rough shape and the bottom sections are too beat up to paint without flaking away, but that’s a problem for another day….

Our pro was able to get started a few days later. One thing I really like about the keyless Schlage locks that we installed when we first moved in is that we can program temporary codes to give to guests, people working on our home, etc, which we can then de-program whenever we want. Thus it’s easy to have people work on the house when we’re not home without having to leave it unlocked or give them a key. Also in case you’re wondering, we locked the cats in an upstairs bedroom on the days when he was working, so that they didn’t bother him or try to escape.

The first night when I got home from work, I could see that he’d made a lot of progress with the skim coating:

The second day, he’d moved the furniture to the first sections he’d skimcoated in order to finish the rest of it:

At this point, I appreciated that we didn’t just have a concrete floor in the basement — at times I’d wondered if that might be better than our old tile floor, but this confirmed for me that it would like a lot less finished (duh).

He spent another two days putting down the VCT tile, which I think is pretty darn quick for 700 square feet with lots of angled cuts and two closets. I was so excited to see the finished result!

The mantra throughout this basement project has been: it is still a basement. But you know what? I think it looks pretty darn great! Here’s a reminder of the before and after from a few key angles (before on the top row, after on the bottom row):

I love that it’s so much brighter and more uniform, and most of all I love that it’s no longer dangerous for our health.

We still need to get all the furniture and tools moved back, but I just couldn’t wait to share the progress with you!