Formica Vanity Tile Transformation
My friend was in need of some help updating her vanity. I offered to take off the pink formica and replace with tile. She chose a small circular tile that comes on sheets and makes spacing the tiles very easy. I love a good salvage job and my tile and grout skills are coming right along!
First step was to remove the formica. Wear protective glasses and gloves, the formica can get some sharp edges when you are prying pieces off. I like using a small crow bar and hammer. A razor blade was useful to get the initial corners up, too.
I also removed the edge/side of the formica (even though it looks like it was left on in the picture). My plan was to wrap the tiles around the side for a finished look. In this picture, I am prepping my sheets prior to glueing them to the counter. You could use scissors or a razor blade to cut off excess tiles from the sheet. Once I had all the sheets cut to the appropriate size, I glued the tiles down with adhesive caulk. Used about 1 and a half tubes on this 4 x 6 foot area.
While the adhesive dries, I applied citristrip (my favorite non toxic) paint and stain stripper, to the drawers which were getting a darker color stain to match other wood in the room.
We matched the grout color pretty close to the tile color – this picture is wet grout but when it dried it was much lighter. When grouting the edge, it’s better to mix your grout a little thicker because it won’t slide off the side.
Here is the finished product – much improved from the pink formica!
8 Comments
Amy Brown
Looks great! Another job well done!
Tanner Merk
Its such as you read my thoughts! You appear to understand so much approximately this, like you wrote the guide in it or something. I believe that you could do with some p.c. to force the message home a little bit, but other than that, that is wonderful blog. A fantastic read. I’ll certainly be back.
Julie
You don’t have to remove the formica if it is still sticking well. We had formica in the kitchen of our beach house and I wanted tile counter tops. I scuffed it a bit with sandpaper. Then just proceeded with the tile. Worked beautifully and 23 years later, the tile is still in place,
Maria Salaiz-Valdez
will this work on a larger area. My kitchen is formica counter tops, home built in the 70’s.
I am on fixed budget I like tile, could something like this be done on it??
chaosqueen
Hi Maria – thanks for the comment. Yes, this would work well on any counter. I’ve also done it on a bathroom vanity – check out my diy tab or more info.
chaosqueen
Hi Julie – yes, you can leave the formica on but I prefer to take it off because it could peal off in the future…along with the tile. It is a little more effort, so I can see your point.
Jane Anderson
Did u use the tiny tiles so you wouldn’t have to use a tile cutter? I would like to do this on my kitchen tops but don’t want to use a tile cutter.
chaosqueen
Hi Jane – yes, I originally chose the small tiles because they don’t need as much cutting and I didn’t have a wet saw. I did invest in a manual tile cutter that does an ok job (about $20 at home depot), but it’s hard to get the tiles precise. On these small tiles it isn’t a big deal but if you had an area that needed a lot of tiles cut, it wouldn’t do a very good job. Since this project, I have invested in a wet saw and it’s amazing. I didn’t realize how affordable they were…$100 well spent! Keep in mind, to do it right, you have to cut half of the circles (in half) to make a straight edge because of the way the tiles are staggered on the sheet.
Good luck!