When we bought our current home, it was not in great shape. The previous owner had damaged a lot of things (many intentionally). One of the things on our minds had been the disgusting carpets. We couldn’t afford to do anything about them except hire a cleaner before we moved in, which didn’t help. We ended up removing the carpet from the master bedroom and sealed and painted the subfloor grey to make a nice industrial home office.
The rest of the house still hand gross carpet, full of dust and pet stains of the previous owners. Fixing this problem costed a lot, and took our whole summer.
We finally saved up enough to afford new flooring, but only if we did the installation ourselves. We shopped around all the local “liquidation” flooring companies and got some quotes. We even had some carpet replaced by them, but all the hardwood options were still too expensive. Jess found the material we liked the most (COREtec) for wholesale price online. Since we saved some money on the overall price, we got some extra to put in the bathrooms as well!
The stuff came in a semi truck, and I had to load like a pallet of these 50 lb boxes into the house. My first mistake was laying it in the middle of the carpet I needed to replace. I ended up cutting all the carpet up around those boxes first, and finally moved them to the kitchen.
In the mean time I had to remove that patch of horribly scratched cherry hardwood that was in front of the front door (top left of the above pic). The area was only about 6×10 feet (60 sq feet), but it took me at least two full days to remove. They use what I like to call the Devil’s Peanutbutter to glue the wood to the concrete slab. After the first day, I had beaten on my prybars so much that they were bent. My entire body was in pain. I even broke some blades on my oscillating saw. Once the wood was removed, the silicone goo released a strong epoxy smell that permeated the house for days. I hope to god I never have to deal with that stuff again. That in itself is worth paying someone else to do, even if I can’t afford it, I’ll pay someone else to do it before I’ll do it again.
After removal of the pet stains and Devil’s Peanutbutter, We laid a vapor barrier (the green plastic) down. This is recommended as water can get trapped under the flooring and cause issues, though it differs based on where you live and what kind of foundation you have. Definitely google for more info on that from experts online. Where this material overlapped, we had to tape it with duct tape to keep it a single membrane. SOme places this caused the plastic to bunch up and for a few months the floor was crinkly sounding in certain places until it settled.
That pic was also during the stage of permanently removing pet odors.
Typical wisdom says to start laying this flooring on an exterior wall since those are most likely to be straight. We did, however as mentioned in our post of the kitchen tile to the hardwood floor transition, we got lucky and worked hard to get a nice end result. We might should have started on the other side of the room to make sure the tile lines up well.
Laying floor is hard work. You will need knee pads and the correct tools <LINK>
Floor installation kit: This comes with wall spacers, a metal pull bar for making the floor align length-wide, and a tapping block. Do not forgo this purchase or you will destroy the tongue and groove of your laminate at the ends of each row.
Good knee pads: I Recommend going to the store and trying on a bunch to see what feels good to you. i took a pair back because they sucked.
Cutting mat: So as not to mess up the floor.
Straight Edge
Bandsaw: You might want a better one, but this is what I have.
Underlayment: Again, research the particular type you need for your location and foundation type.
CORETEC Plus flooring.
It’s also back-breaking. Here’s me contemplating how much money I am saving versus how miserable I feel and whether it is worth it.
But the end results are totally worth it. Though I might would pay a few thousand dollars for someone else to do it all (we had just as much and more complicated work upstairs as well.)
Now we did a terrible job we did on the complicated edges by the door frame and fireplace mantle. We cut the tile to match those angles, then had to use brown caulk to fill the inevitable gaps. This is the wrong way to do it! Instead you should use a vibrating saw to undercut the bottom of the moulding in the doorways and mantle and slide the floor underneath for a beautiful finish.
We of course cleaned it up a bit since the second pic, but just do it right the first time and there should be no problem.
Be sure to do the closets as well.
Before and after pics:
