To lay laminate on top of bad travertine or rip travertine up and put laminate down?

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smittenbritt

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We bought a 1939 house from a flipper who just "beautified" it. It has travertine floors throughout. The bedrooms, hallway and living room and kitchen are all the same tile and in very sore state. They flow from room to room meaning that there's not break in the doorways between the rooms like you would carpet with those metal strips. There will be whole tiles straddling both sides of the door way. So doing one room would mean cutting tiles. We have no spare tiles. They are large and cream and chipped and cracked. There's big chips and cracks with normal plaster used to fill in the chips. The plaster and grout is coming up constantly. There's loose tiles in places that will rock. It's so filthy that I could clean the same spot 5 times in a row and will still wipe up filthy like it hasn't been cleaned in years. We have a 10 month old baby who I don't want choking on plaster pieces and she's already fell on the dam thing. I wouldn't cry if it got ripped up except for the cost and convenience. Trying to clear just one room at a time of furniture would be almost impossible and then there's dust and cost to do it. We are currently decorating our baby's room (we moved in days before she was born hense the lack of forethought in planning, I.e having floors cleaned and sealed/repaired). My father in law just had laminate installed and he didn't have done as much as he intended. He's offered the leftovers to us. it would mean ordering a little more of the laminate to cover the 10 x 9 room but we are tempted. My husband is thinking of laying it down himself over the tile. But i've read online the loose and broken tiles maybe an issue. Also that we may have to put plywood base then a matting then the laminate. The difference in floor levels between baby's laminate flooring and the original tile in hallway i imagine would be a bit silly if that's true. However the mess and time time and cost to rip it up before hand has me worried. If it gets ripped up we may hire professionals. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge that they could share? Do you think we could lay it on top of this tile or is it too bad a state? How long and costly/messy would ripping up the tile first be?
 
I think leaving it there is adding more trouble down the road. It dosn't sound like the floor structure was beefed up for the tile. You will have to remove furniture to do one room anyway. I would find a handyman that could cut it at the door and get it out of there in a day. With a curtain over the door and a commercial vacuume some one carefull could keep the dust to a min.
 
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