Have you ever moved to a new apartment or house and immediately seen that you don’t like the flooring? It might be in a darker color than you’d prefer. We’ve all been there. Not every space is going to be perfect for you. But you can always do renovations to perfect it.
It’s expensive to redo your floors, no matter how big or small the space is. You need to buy new material, wood flooring (for hardwood floors), accessories, and more. If you don’t have the time or the energy to do it, you’ll likely pay for someone else to do it for you, and construction work never comes cheap.
That’s why one of the cheapest options to give your floor some new life and light is opting for white LVP flooring or white vinyl plank flooring, aside from thin linoleum. It’s one of the most used flooring methods in the United States. Luxury vinyl plank flooring comes much cheaper than other materials and you can DIY the application over a weekend or a holiday. But not everyone has DIY-ed repairs to a house. So to help you out, here are some steps and ways on how to cut vinyl flooring for your home.
Measure the Vinyl Flooring and Space
Usually, when you buy white vinyl plank flooring, it comes in pre-cut bulk vinyl sheets, just like concrete tiles. If the room you’re reflooring has straight edges, you should have no problem starting from a straight wall and working your way across the whole space.
But for most floors, you’ll need to cut the vinyl to accommodate foundation posts, door jambs, and other protruding floor area. The best way to cut floor tiles from white vinyl plank is by first measuring the space you need the vinyl to fit into. You can use any regular tape measure that you already have, or a ruler if you don’t own a tape measure.
Once you have the length and width of the space, transfer this to the vinyl tile. Since white vinyl flooring is light, you should use a dark marker. Then, get a cutter and ruler or any straight edge and trace the lines to make it easier to cut the vinyl flooring with your tools.
If you’re not sure of the measurement, it’s better to have an excess of a few millimeters rather than filling up the space later on. As much as possible, be exact in your measurements to avoid having to patch up the flooring.
Tools to Cut White Vinyl
The problem with doing your own renovations is that you might need some tools that you don’t have in your toolbox. If you’re a college student, or a young professional who is just renting your place, you’d likely not have power tools in your possession. What’s great about white vinyl tiles is that they pack a lot of look despite being much easier to cut compared to wood or concrete tiles. You can learn how to cut luxury vinyl plank flooring through videos on the internet.
Cutter or Utility Knife
After a few months at the gym, you might have the strength to cut vinyl tiles just using a regular cutter or utility knife. If you believe in yourself, or are just very determined to not buy any additional tools, you can try this method.
What you need to do is first trace the measurement that you made on the tile using the cutter or knife. You don’t need to go deep with the blade scoring the vinyl tile, you just have to make sure there is a cut along the line of measurement.
Then, hold the vinyl tile or sheet vinyl between your hands and make sure that the line you scored is right in the middle. Using your own force, snap the tile in two using the scored line as your guide. Make sure to snap back from the scored line to get an even cut.
Handsaw
If you have a handsaw or you have friends and family who own one, you can borrow it for the weekend and use it to cut your vinyl tile. It's a good vinyl cutter.
The method is pretty much the same, you can forgo scoring the measurement line, but you’d have a better guide when you score with a cutter or knife.
Then, put the vinyl tile on an elevated surface like a table or a ledge and keep up to 1-2 inches of the edge of the table, and start cutting with the handsaw. Keep in mind, though, that you need the handsaw with fine teeth and not the one used for cutting wood. Fine teeth saw is the best way to cut luxury vinyl plank flooring because it makes a cleaner cut and prevents you from going off the scored line.
In Conclusion
These are the two tools that you can use when DIY-ing your floor with white vinyl tiles. You don’t need power tools to get the vinyl cut that you need. One weekend off from anything and a cutter, knife, or handsaw will do the trick.
Just remember to keep discarded parts that are cut off because you can use them again to patch the floor or put them in the nooks and crannies of your space.
Happy DIY-ing and for more home improvement tips and tricks, visit us here at Floorhero!
June 3, 2022
