We are just completing an extensive renovation of our 34SE to include replacing original decals with full body paint, removed banquet booth and replaced with what the original brochure called a dining/computer table and two chairs and, to your point, new floor covering stem to stern. Never understood the logic of carpet and RVs.
We went with Armstrong vinyl 24" x 12" self adhesive tiles in a stone pattern laid staggered to give a more random look. Removing the old carpet in the bedroom and front room and the cockpit is dirty work but relatively easy since it is simply stapled to the subfloor. The hard part is getting the foam padding up as it is glued to the subfloor. The carpet is also glued to the metal floor in the cockpit area also, but is easier to pull up than the foam padding. Once that is all done, we ensured all staples were removed, removed the carpet nailer strips, filled voids in the plywood and sealed the plywood subfloor.
We started tiling at the rear wall of the bedroom, working forward. Being belt and suspenders types, although the tiles were self stick, we also applied a THIN coat of tile cement to the sealed subfloor. When we reached the original vinyl tile in the bath area, we removed just enough of the old tile to allow installation of a few new tiles, then repeated that through the kitchen/dining area until we reached the old carpeted front room area. We did not apply tile cement where the original tiles were as their removal left a residue that we felt sufficed.
The cockpit area metal floor was too uneven to lay tile directly to it, so we removed the captain and navigator seats and the lower dashboard skirts, then using self tapping screws and a lot of care screwed down a 3/8" thick plywood subfloor. We sealed that, applied a THIN coat of tile cement and tiled it. Given you have to work around the fuel pedal, brake pedal, removing the lower dash skirts, etc. this part was an adventure.
Depending on your point of view, you now have an elevated (by 3/8") cockpit, or a sunken front room. Your local hardware store has carpet transition pieces that work beautifully here.
Lessons learned: the final product exceeds our expectations! (here comes the but monkey)
But, wish we had not removed the carpet nailing strips beneath the slideouts. You need to fully extend the slide outs to remove the carpet and install the tile. With the slide outs extended you can reach all but about 3 or 4 inches of the floor. Tile cement never really "dries". Given foot pressure, tiles will slip sideways. Not a problem next to walls, but in a MH they will tend to gravitate out underneath the slides. Leaving the nailing strips would have equated to a wall to stop that movement. In our case, we used unobstrusive staples in the tiles nearest the slides.
How long does it take? Well, we had already sent the rest easy sofa out to be re upholstered, and had removed the banquet, and donated the euro recliner. So we were clean inside. Took about 45 minutes to remove the old carpet, about three hours to remove the padding and about four hours to prepare the cockpit. About 1/2 hour to seal all the raw plywood and then knocked off for the day. Day two, almost completed all the new installation, but after nine hours that area around the captain's chair was causing me to pull out the last of the hair I have left with color. Knocked off in frustration. Day three, finished the captain's area in about two hours including replacing the lower dash skirts.
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