The first thing to remember is that tools can be dangerous and should not be thrown at one another. We did not actually throw any tools at each other. And we had been married long enough when we installed our laminate flooring to know that yelling at each other gets us no where. But there were some tense moments. We were fortunate that our only real injuries were an assortment of aches and pains in new and not so interesting places.
Have a plan. The flooring we selected was not wood grain. It looks like tile and has a very strong pattern. That was our first mistake. With a wood look alike, it does not so much matter where you begin and end.
If your laminate has a strong pattern, take a good look at the room and decide what the focal points are and how you want the pattern to look in those areas. Also, you might want to measure the room and figure out how many planks across it is. You will want to “hide” any thin pieces behind furniture. Also, do not just stagger the planks as a brick layer staggers bricks. Sometimes you will come up to an end wall and have just a little sliver of the end of a plank to put down. These will not stay in place well and you end us saying things to your spouse like, “It was your job to keep that in mind” and “What do you mean it was my job, you never told me that.” Then he tries to make it better with a compliment, “Well, you’re the one with the good memory.” So each time you begin a run, check to see how it will end and adjust the starting plank by trimming the starting end that butts up to the wall appropriately.
If you will be laying laminate in more than one room, as we did, and these rooms connect, give some thought to how you will want the transition to look. There are threshold pieces that allow you to stop and start up again in a new room as long as the pattern is not definite. We had to blend everything together and I have to tell you that going around corners gave us fits. You have never heard so much cursing. If you have to go around corners, have lots of paper handy. Large sheets are best. Make templates. A good rule of thumb for the whole project is to “measure twice and cut once”. Even so a lot of exasperated groaning will occur. Do save the pieces you cut incorrectly, you may be able to use them later. Do not try to work on your floor after you have put in a long day at your paying job. That is when we made the most errors. But we did not have much choice about it because our days off did not have much in common.
Once you have figured out how you want it to look (remember to maintain some flexibility on this issue), it is time to take a really good look at your floor. If your house is built on a concrete foundation, most likely your floor is nice and level. Sing Hallelujah. Ours was not. Our house is built on a raised foundation and there was a sizable drop off from the kitchen to the dining area, from the kitchen to the nook and a good dip in the living room. These had to be leveled before we could begin putting down the flooring. Pray that your floor is level.
There are a number of products made just for this purpose. They are supposed to be self leveling. Right. It is not always good to follow the directions. But this is my natural tendency. As my husband finally figured out, it is better if the leveling compound is thinner than recommended than the other way around. My penance was to do a lot of sanding. Drywall sanding sheets worked best for me. Avoid this step if you possibly can. Believe me, if your floor is not level, it is best to just live with no carpeting or whatever for a while than to begin and figure that you will level it as you go along. That dip in the living room that I mentioned, well, it was very late one night and we just wanted to finish the living room. We went right over the dip without thinking. Luckily, laminate flooring is somewhat flexible and the dip is not too extreme. But do not believe it when the salesperson tells you how flexible it is, it’s not as flexible as they say. We try not to walk over that spot too much.
If you do not have a nice big truck, have the flooring delivered. Do not try to get it home in your Jeep Cherokee, especially if the store is more than a few minutes from your home and you have to make several trips. That was so not fun. Buy more flooring than you will need to cover all your floors. The exact amount extra you will need depends on how many mistakes you will make and how strong a pattern you are working with. The more definite the pattern, the more extra you will need. Luckily for us, the new batch that we had to order matched the old batch nicely enough.
There are a number of special tools the salesperson will want to sell to you. Buy them. That way you will not have to go back later and get them anyway. We used a circular saw to do the simple trims on the planks. Buy several replacement blades ahead of time. Laminate flooring is really tough and just eats up your blades. For the fancy cuts around corners and such we used one of those rotating plunge cutters/saws. My husband could tell you the name of it. I love my jewelry making tools and can name them all. That I can not name all other tools appropriately is not a defect on my part.
We sacrificed our garage for a time and parked our cars outside. We set up the garage as our workshop. That meant we did not have to bring all our tools in from outside each time we stopped working on the floor. You do not want to cut the flooring indoors. The dust that is created is phenomenal. Be sure to close the door from your house to your garage before you start cutting. Even then, you will have to wipe down your walls afterwards. Cover your furniture with drop cloths. I really wish someone had told us that.
We also made a cutting table from a large piece of plywood and saw horses. Make sure the horses are stable and level. Temporarily attach the plywood to the horses with screws. On one long side of the table, screw down two 2x4’s parallel to each other along the full length about five inches apart. This makes the long cuts along the length of the planks easier. Wear eye and hearing protection while cutting. Seriously.
For the rest of it, just follow the directions (especially the one about the spacing between walls and flooring. Oh yeah.). And yes, I know what I said about directions earlier. We love our laminate floor. We are glad that we did it. You will be too.
http://www.syzygyjewelry.com
How To Install Laminate Flooring
