I am working on my kitchen remodel. When I moved in, the kitchen had carpet and we decided to rip that up and we were thinking of putting a tile flooring down. When we took out the carpet, we realized that the original hard wood was still under it. However, before they had carpet, they had linoleum that they glued directly to the hard wood. We are still hoping to have a tile floor. The problem is, the floor bows up in the middle of the room. There is a cement wall in the basement directly where the top of the bow is. We suspect that the bow is due to the rest of the house settling but that part staying put. We aren't really sure how to level the floor effectively without having a really high threshold between the kitchen and dining room. I know there are leveling compounds but I wasn't sure if that would be a good idea since it would need to level around the edges of the room. What would you recommend for us to fix this floor?

I think you will have a huge amount of work (and end up with too-low toe kicks under the cabinets), and are better off putting down a high grade linoleum. They make some DIY types now that are self adhering, the way vinyl tiles are.

Hi SLCDIY

You can't lay tile over hardwoods anyway, so if you want tile you'll need to continue the project by ripping out the lino. And hardwood and then see what is left for a floor/subfloor below that.

Here, you may be able to remove the next layer of floor and then figure a way to feather in some new underlayment that will blend the bow in the floor so that you can lay a new cement board flooring and then install your tile.

As stated, removal of the old lino./hardwood will tell you what the next step is... ;)

Mark