I'm Inspired: August 2008

I had 50+ year old hardwood floors in my home and they had seen better days. They were unsightly! The living room, hallway and foyer were once carpeted and the perimeters had noticeable nail holes. The floors had dents, gouges, stains and gaps. The wooden baseboards in some areas contained rug fibers stuck to the paint.

My first thought was to refinish them. That presented a number of issues. Where are we going to put all the furniture and stuff from four rooms? Could we survive being in our home during the process (we both suffer allergies). There was only so much a refinisher could do and one of the things I really wanted was lighter floors, and the floors would not be much lighter than the currently were.

The other option was to cover them with a new product. I could have a new hardwood floor floated over the old one. But did I really want hardwood? How practical was that for us? Accidents happen in our house. I needed a floor that could take a beating. I dreaded the thought of maintaining that much wood flooring. Bamboo flooring was out of my budget. That left me with laminate. I called my contractor and ask him to give me a quote and he came back with $7000. I slept on it…for about 2 years.

Can I do this? I can do it!

I wondered if I could install the flooring myself. I had experience installing vinyl tile on two separate occasions and I did a pretty darn good job. I went and researched installing laminate flooring. The major tools I would need were a miter and circular saw. I knew I could borrow those from a friend. I had never used them, but how hard could it be? I went on line to various sites to see what the laminate floor options were. I found iFloors.com and found a wide variety of styles, colors, quality and prices. They also offered free samples. I gave myself a budget of $2000 for the laminate and narrowed my choice to four (samples). The samples came and I gave myself a week to make a decision.

Making a Decision – Which Floor Product?

I mulled over the choices. The color I thought I would like best was too light and it looked unnatural. A couple of the samples had a pattern simulating multi-plank wood flooring, but the surface was flat and the seams (which would be visible especially at an angle) also looked unnatural. I ended up selecting a style where one piece represented one plank of wood and the surface was embossed to look like wood grain. There were at least 3 unique patterns to this style so that it could be laid in varying configurations to mix up the pattern and not detect the repetition. The color was lighter than my current hardwood floor and the style meshed well with the other elements of architecture in my home. The padding was already attached to the underside of the flooring—I intentionally looked for this as I did not want to lay rolls of cushioning material. ( Beware that some underlayments have a strong odor.)

I ordered the flooring, the flat delivery rate was reasonable There was an option to have it delivered to a local business for free, but reloading and unloading that amount of heavy material wasn’t worth saving $99. We had it delivered to the house. The transaction went smoothly and the delivery timely. There were a couple boxes with damaged corners and the merchant replaced them with no hassle.

Getting to Work

There was no question this was going to be a lot of work. It wasn’t that it would be so hard, but it was going to take time and patience. First, I removed the doors and pulled all the baseboards. With a Sharpie pen, I wrote the origin/ location of each piece (door ends and the backs of the baseboards). I used a nipper/plier tool like the KR nipper Pliers to pull the nails out of the back of the baseboards. (I decided on reinstalling the baseboards after a little sanding and repainting.) There were too many door jambs to cut by hand (10 in all), so I invested in a Bosch undercut saw. It’s a nifty little basic saw I can use for other projects in the future. My friend lent me his floor installation kit which contains some basic tools you need…spacers, pull bar and a tapping block (Harbor Freight has a kit for $6). I already had the other basic hand tools.

Planning the Layout – Executing the Plan

The original hardwood floor was continuous with no thresholds. It flowed through five distinct rooms and areas. This had to be true of the new floor. I really couldn’t find any information to guide me on this so I thought it through carefully and decided I needed to start with the master bedroom, work into the hallway and then into the bedroom on the other side of the hall way. It was not possible to lock in the plank at the threshold, so I scraped the edge of the plank, applied wood glue and slid in the plank on the hallway side. I made sure to secure the planks so they would not separate until they had thoroughly dried. I took heed and made sure that the planks along the wall of the master bedroom would be no narrower than 2”. I did some basic math to ensure that once I made it across the hall and into the adjacent bedroom, there would be a plank width at least or great than 2”. The rest of the installation measured out accordingly.

The baseboard

There were a lot of pieces of baseboard. I used empty laminate boxes to collect some of the smaller pieces. Somewhere in between installing the floor and painting rooms, I sanded all the baseboards on my patio using one of the doors covered in newspaper set on top of two saw horses—as a table. I moved the operation inside, into the living room to do the painting. I used evenings to put on a coat of paint and let it dry overnight. Reinstalling the baseboard was easy, I could see the indentations where the nail holes were and I placed nails in all the holes (once piece of board at a time) and nailed it back up to the wall. I used a “nail set” to counter sink the nail and then filled the depressions with a caulk, wiping off the excess with a damp rag. I went back and touched up the baseboard with a little paint.

What I learned!

Everything went well with the installation. I am very happy with the result. I did find early on, when I completed the master bedroom, that for the style of floor I used, it is important to vary the length of the board so the seams aren’t predictable. This gives the appearance of a more natural wood floor. I already laid the floor when I noticed this, but fortunately once the bed went in, it wasn’t visibly obvious.

I hope after reading this you will be inspired and have the confidence to install your own floating floor. If an inexperienced person like me can do it anyone who has the patience and takes the time to follow the instructions can do it!