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DIY Home Improvement

U

Ulfwald

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
This weekend I started the spring cleaning and home improvement projects in one swoop.

Friday, I pulled up carpet and padding in my house, about 1200 square feet of it. Then had to vacume the floor, pull all the nails, staples, pull up the molding, etc. Then bring up 40 boxes of laminate flooring. (Crap that stuff is heavy!)

Saturday, put down the underlayment, and then lay the laminate flooring (a learnig experience), move furniture from the den back into the dinning room so that sunday we could do the den.

Sunday, Lay the underlayment, then the laminate flooring. this is the biggest room in the house, and it went rather smoothly, but damn, I am soooo sore after laying that stuff, cutting it, working on my knees all day long for 2 days straight.


I still have over half the house to do. I am going to be sore for quite a while.
 
I'm installing laminate flooring this summer. Was it difficult? I'm not the handiest guy, but it looks like something I ought to be able to handle.
 
Originally posted by: loup garou
Before you move all the furniture back, can I come over to your house and slide around in my socks? 😛
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My 3 year old son has already discovered that. And the fact that match box cars zoom so much better.
 
Originally posted by: TBone48
I'm installing laminate flooring this summer. Was it difficult? I'm not the handiest guy, but it looks like something I ought to be able to handle.
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It's easy. Remember to measure twice, cut once. Also make sure your subfloor is level.
 
Originally posted by: FoBoT
when you finish show us some :camera:'s of the flooring
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Come on. You're a lifer. You should know that ATOT requires a picture update every other hour and a fresh beer in the man's hands every opposite hour.
 
I pretty much did the same thing in the lower level of my house. Dining room, living room, den, family room and hallway. Didn't pull off all the moulding though and just covered the expansion space with quarter round. Still have the kitchen to finish, but we are waiting for an estimate to redo the island before it is complete.

Bunch of work, but it is well worth it!

Now if my daughter can figure out how to not jump on the couch to make it slide 6 inches every time she sits down.
 
Originally posted by: gooch
I pretty much did the same thing in the lower level of my house. Dining room, living room, den, family room and hallway. Didn't pull off all the moulding though and just covered the expansion space with quarter round. Still have the kitchen to finish, but we are waiting for an estimate to redo the island before it is complete.

Bunch of work, but it is well worth it!

Now if my daughter can figure out how to not jump on the couch to make it slide 6 inches every time she sits down.
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Grab some scraps of carpet and put it under the legs. Should mostly take care of that, unless it's up against a wall that's getting a beating.
 
definitely make sure subfloor is relatively level before laying laminate. i sort of ignored that and have a few spots on mine where the floor "bends" a little bit 😛

i hear you on the hard work though. i did the whole first floor of my house last year, about 800 sq feet. still holding up strong though.
 
What's good laminate? Personally I think bamboo looks better but if there's a good quality cheap laminate I'd like to see it... I'll be doing 500 sq ft of my house this summer or next...
 
Originally posted by: HomeBrewerDude
thats a lot of hard work...... i'm thinking about putting laminate down over our hardwood floors that are in not so great shape.
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I would recommend you sand and re-apply polyurethane your hardwood rather than go with laminate.

I have the pergo laminate and would rather have hardwood. Call it grass is always greener on the other side snydrome. The problem I have with laminate is you can't sand, buff and paint a scratch away like you can with hardwood. You can use the color fillers but they never do a good job. In addition my 6 yr old laminate now has dirt ground into the finish from walking on it and it won't come out.
 
Originally posted by: Ulfwald
I got the laminate on sale at home depot for .88 per square foot.
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Nice. I got some for .97 on sale and it really looks nice. Can't remember the brand, but it's better than the overpriced Pergo that every gets because of the brand name.
 
Originally posted by: Injury
Grab some scraps of carpet and put it under the legs. Should mostly take care of that, unless it's up against a wall that's getting a beating.
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Thanks for the tip! I was thinking of getting some of those non-slip carpet pads to put underneath the couches, as they don't actually have legs and are basically resting on the couch fabric.
 
Thing is, I still have 2 bed rooms, 1 master bedroom, 5 closets, and a hallway to do. then tile 2 bathrooms.


Does home ownership ever get easy?
 
Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Originally posted by: TBone48
I'm installing laminate flooring this summer. Was it difficult? I'm not the handiest guy, but it looks like something I ought to be able to handle.
Click to expand...

It's easy. Remember to measure twice, cut once. Also make sure your subfloor is level.
Click to expand...

What a novel idea damn thanks
😀
 
I have wanted to do some laminate, but hate the hollow sound and how it often looks really fake. Pergo is a good example of this. Have they gotten better over time?
 
Originally posted by: creedog
I have wanted to do some laminate, but hate the hollow sound and how it often looks really fake. Pergo is a good example of this. Have they gotten better over time?
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Laminate has a ton of really nice advantages and relatively few cons compared to hardwood.

First of all, that hollow sound is completely caused by the padding used underneath... nobody is forcing you to use the padding, and you can definitely do without it and it will sound dull just like hardwood... but teh padding is there to help save your legs, I suggest using it.

Good looking laminant flooring is expensive, but there is some stuff that can be found, typically in the $3 sq/ft range. This stuff has a custome graining on it thats actually etched onto it with varying depths and even feels reasonably real. No clue how that stuff holds up though.
 
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