Laying my laminate Flooring... Part 1

When I set out to install my flooring myself I knew it would be a challenge. However I really wanted to give it a go. Although I’ve never really done anything like it before, I almost wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of doing these challenging things which a lot of people would rather just pay someone else to do.

Lucky for me, I have amazing parents who are overly supportive and encourage me to have a go at everything. They also had some great knowledge after laying their own floor about 9 years back. Mum also volunteered to help with the actual laying, as really it is a job that requires two people.

I won’t do any fancy tutorial as really I don’t see myself as an expert at all, and really we just figured it out as we went along. I’m sure there are better ways of doing things but we did what worked for us and I think the result is looking pretty amazing.

We're still not quite finished, just a few last rows to go in which will hopefully happen this weekend. We are also yet to install the skirting timbers, so the floors are not fully complete yet.

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So heres a little run down of how we did it.

First up we laid the underlay, basically just a thin foam with a waterproof barrier which helps protect moisture coming up from the slab and damaging the boards. We just stuck it together with tape, nothing fancy it really doesn’t need to be as the boards hold it all down.

 

I then used our new multi-tool to undercut my doorways. This tool is awesome, we just used a spacer the right height to rest the blade on, and then it just cuts its way through. This one was only about $60 and came with heaps of different accessories. You can get better quality ones but for this job this was more than adequate. It cuts a perfectly even line.

Then there was quite a bit of umming and ahhing over where to start, we decided to start in the end bedroom, so we could get a bit of practice in before laying the more important living areas.

We used spacers, all the same size to ensure we left an expansion gap. These types of floors can expand and contract in different temperatures and humidity levels so this is important. My spacers were 8mm thick, this was to enable my 12mm skirting timbers to be able to cover the gaps. As we progressed some of these gaps were a bit bigger and some a bit smaller, it would be impossible to get it perfect.

 

To install the boards is actually a very simple process as they just click together, generally we would click them in sideways, and then tap them down with a hammer to ensure they were locked tightly together. We cut the end off a board and used this as our ‘tapper’ as the grooved edges fit together and the bagging doesn’t damage the boards then. The tapper starts to look a bit worse for wear after a while. Occasionally the layout would require the boards to be laid end-to-end first and then tapped sideways.

A lot of cuts were required to get boards the right length and also to cut around the doorways and angles. We used my new jig saw which was a Christmas gift from my parents, it worked really well. We clamped boards down so they didn’t move about.

 

 

 

We went through A LOT of blades though. My boards are 12mm thick, and must be pretty tough because after a while blades would get blunt and make cutting really hard. We tried a variety of different blades, wood and metal blades, also different brands, but none really seemed to last any longer than others. Our preference was probably the metal blades as the cuts were slightly smoother.

We went against the instructions which recommended all cuts be made from underneath to prevent chipping. After a few practice runs we found our blades weren’t making any significate chips on the top anyway. This made marking out cuts a lot easier. We stuck little felt pads on the bottom of the jig saw to ensure it didn’t leave any rub marks as we made the cuts.

Cutting around doorways was difficult and very time consuming, I must say it tested my patients a few times. In some cases we were able to slide the boards underneath the door frame for a seamless look. But in some areas this was just not possible. Therefore we cut the boards as close to the exact door frame size as we could and I will fill in the small gap with a little filler of some sort. You really can’t notice unless you’re down on your hands and knees anyway.

 

It has taken us a few weeks to lay the floor. We have had a few full days over the weekend, but then a lot was done after work each night.

The floor is not perfect, there are a few imperfections here and there, but really I don’t think you can tell unless I point out where they are… so I won’t do that haha.

I think it looks wonderful. I’m so proud of the outcome and that I had a go and challenged myself. I’ve gained some new skills but more importantly gained a huge amount of confidence in being able to tackle these large home projects. Again a huge Thank you to my parents who were just as much a part of this project as I was. I couldn’t have done it without them.

Ill upload some finished pics hopefully next week.

Then onto stage 2... Painting, cutting and fitting my skirting boards.

Flooring....check!!

My flooring has been selected and deposit paid. Although I still have a couple of months before I need my flooring, its one of those things I just wanted to get out of the way so I can move onto other decisions. So many decision lol. My local carpet store had a great sale on so I decided to take advantage of what they had on offer.

The flooring budget was tight, as with everything. Although I'd love to have fancy hardwoods throughout, my budget just doesn’t allow for that and therefore I decided on laminate wood-look planks. A lot of my family have it in their homes and have nothing but praise for it. Its hard wearing and no maintenance required.

I wasn’t 100% sure what type of laminate I would go for as there are hundreds of options, long boards, short boards, wide boards, beveled edges, flush edges, gloss, matt etc. I guess I was just looking for something that looked like real timber floors to me, and hoping to find something that would draw me in and I would just 'know'. I liked the idea of the longer boards, but really had no idea of colours as I like both light and dark timbers.

My local store had a great longboard product which was on sale called 'Titan Longboards', it has a gloss finish, but not high gloss and a small beveled edge. There were a bunch of colours but I was straight away drawn to ‘spotted gum’. They laid it out on the floor on top of the real ‘spotted gum’ timber and you could not tell the difference. It looked just like the real thing, I'm not making this up.

Then we wondered over to the carpet section. I was planning for the master bedroom and one of the minor bedrooms to have carpet. The third bedroom would have the laminate. I didn’t realise there were so many different types of carpet, different styles, materials, finishes. I wanted a dark charcoal grey, and they had just the thing on sale for a great price. It’s not super plush but I was advised not to go that route and plush carpets wear a lot faster than the harder carpets. The dark colour is probably a bold choice, a lot of people advised me against it but I had to choose what I loved, otherwise I knew I'd regret it if I played the safe option. 

I've decided to install the laminate flooring myself (with some family help of course) this saved me a lot of money. It'll be a time consuming task, but I'm in no hurry so it doesn’t really matter how long it takes. 

Hopefully it will all look great once laid.