Kitchen Flooring Installation in Palm Springs

A kitchen floor in Palm Springs has a harder life than it looks. It sits on a concrete slab that may have been poured sixty years ago, it takes tracked in sand from the patio, and in many houses it runs straight out toward a wall of sliding glass. Telescopecards installs kitchen floors across Palm Springs with that in mind, and before we quote new flooring we check whether the floor you already have is worth keeping.

Start by Looking Under What Is There

Many modernist homes here were built with terrazzo or tile floors that later owners covered with carpet, sheet vinyl or laminate. If there is terrazzo under your kitchen, grinding and polishing it back is often cheaper than good new tile and looks like it belongs to the house, because it does.

Older floors can also hold a problem. Nine inch vinyl floor tile and the black adhesive used under many floors from that period can contain asbestos. It is not dangerous sitting quietly in place. It becomes a hazard when it is broken up, sanded or scraped. We recommend a lab test before any old resilient flooring or adhesive is removed, and if it comes back positive, removal is handled by people qualified to do it. That test is inexpensive, and it decides the plan.

Checking the Slab

Tile shows every flaw in the surface beneath it. Before we set a floor we check the slab in three ways:

• Flatness. Larger format tile needs a flatter surface than small tile, or the edges sit at different heights and catch your foot. High spots get ground down and low spots get filled with a leveling compound.
• Cracks. Hairline shrinkage cracks are common in old slabs. A crack isolation membrane over them keeps small movement from cracking the tile above.
• Movement joints. Tile floors need soft joints at the perimeter and at intervals across larger rooms, and at any joint in the slab itself. Skipping them is a common reason tile tents up or cracks years later.

Choosing the Flooring

Porcelain tile is the workhorse. It is dense, takes sand and spills well, and does not care about the dry heat. For a kitchen we look for a tile rated for wet interior floors so it is not slippery when something spills, and we avoid highly polished finishes near the sink.

Terrazzo can mean restoring an original floor, new terrazzo tile, or a newly poured floor. Poured terrazzo is a larger project that is usually planned with the rest of the house, and we will tell you plainly whether it makes sense for your job.

Luxury vinyl is a reasonable choice in a rental or a condo where cost and speed matter, and it is kinder underfoot. It does not suit every mid-century house, and it can expand in strong sun near a glass wall, so we plan expansion gaps with that in mind.

Solid wood is possible, but the very dry desert air opens gaps between boards as the wood shrinks. We explain that tradeoff before anyone falls in love with a sample.

Laying It Out With the House

Floors that run toward a sliding door or glass wall get laid out so the tile lines up with the glass and the main cabinet run, not with whichever wall happened to be straightest. Where a kitchen floor continues into a dining room or great room, we discuss whether the whole area should be done at once, because a transition strip across an open plan interrupts exactly the long sightline these houses were built for.

Working Around the Heat

In summer, tile is set with the air conditioning running and the doors closed. Deliveries and demolition happen early in the morning. Floor tile, thinset and grout are kept inside the house so they are at room temperature when they are used.

What It Costs

Porcelain or ceramic kitchen floors typically run $14 to $32 per square foot installed in Palm Springs. Slab grinding, crack repair, old flooring removal and any abatement are quoted separately. Restoring existing terrazzo generally runs $7 to $15 per square foot depending on its condition and how many repairs it needs.

Talk to Us

Call (760) 482-9865 and we will come look at the floor, including what might be under it.