DIY: 2 Steps to Fix that Ugly Spot in Your Linoleum Floor

So you’ve been living with that ugly hole or tear in your vinyl floor but now you would like to get it fixed? It’s not a difficult repair at all and doesn’t require anything but a couple of tools and a scrap of your original linoleum. Basically the repair involves making a patch out of your scrap piece and using it to replace the bad spot. As a professional installer, I can tell you that the single most important thing you will do in this repair is the precise cutting of your new patch. This is where you should slow down and make your cuts very carefully. If you are precise with your cuts, you will end up with a repair that is almost invisible. You will need a very sharp utility knife, some vinyl flooring adhesive, and of course that piece of material you saved when your floor was originally installed.

The first step in the repair is to get your scrap piece and examine it. If you don’t have a scrap piece, you can use a section from either a closet or from underneath the refrigerator. If it has a pattern or lines in it, you will be able to simply cut along a line and remove a piece of the pattern such as an entire rectangle or circle. Cutting along pattern lines will help tremendously in hiding your repair. After you have selected the section you want to replace your bad spot with, you must lay it very accurately on the floor matching the pattern and then tape it down. Once you have the patch where it will not move on you, take your knife, making sure the blade cuts straight down vertically through both layers of vinyl, and cut along the pattern lines to fit it in. Now just remove the pieces of the original bad spot and you should have a patch that fits exactly in the hole. If you made a bad cut, just make a slightly bigger patch and start over. Scrape up all the old adhesive that you can and get out any dirt from the hole. Once the hole is cleaned up, try dry fitting your new patch piece in the hole. If need be, trim it so that it fits. Just remember, if you make extra cuts after you have cut out your piece, it may not fit any more and you may have to start over.

The second step in repairing your floor is to glue the patch down. Find something small to spread some adhesive in the hole and just under the edges of the original vinyl. This way you won’t have any curling edges later. Just drop your patch right into the hole and press firmly down everywhere (especially along the edges of both your patch and the edges where the patch touches the original floor. A little mineral spirits will clean up any glue you got where it’s not supposed to be.

To finish off your repair, put something with some weight on the patch to hold it in place until the adhesive sets up. You can use a tool box to hold it down or maybe a box of books. Let the repair set until the next day and then remove the weight. Your repair should be dry and almost invisible unless you look very closely for it.

Final tip: there is a vinyl seam sealer that you can use to finish off your repair if you like. The seam sealer will prevent soil from going into the seams of your repair and keep your floor looking good for a much longer time. Enjoy!