My DIY Saturday - Laminate Floor Day

randomshenans

randomshenans

randomshenans

Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2009
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Location
France, Alsace
I live in a rented house, so I was never going to do anything to this place, but the eldest, who is 8 had the downstairs bedroom and it was a bit of a bum deal as the carpet looked just so old it was paper thin and it wasn't pleasant but the landlord had said he wouldn't replace it. The tool.

So with the Mrs bending my ear over moving house, I thought sod it, I'll do it with her this weekend. It's not a huge room, so we managed to pick up all the bits for it for like 200euros, including a couple of box units and a lamp and bits for his room, so I don't think that's bad at all.

I've never put down laminate flooring before, and my issue is getting bored halfway through and wanting to leave it until next time, which is where the Mrs is good as she's damn practical and pushed us through.

It wasn't perfect, and isn't, but for a first go it's not too bad. We didn't lay it in the proper like brick overlap fashion, but that's because I didn't have my saw on me when we started, I had to go and get it, but again it's much better than the nasty carpet that was there.


The outset, kinda in the mist of ripping things out.



Carpet out, underlay scraping.

All out.


Clear room. Now to start.


Underlay going down. It was a waterproof and spongy layer, felt nice underfoot even for a pretty thin layer.


Sizing up some boards. Again, I know the correct method is overlapping! :D


Now, the boards on the left here aren't cut to size, they're placed down, we weren't cut and finished.
The edging bits were the most frustrating! Instead of using more skirting, as there was already some in situ, I used some edging strip, 90deg curve to edge the room.

Going back together... you can just see the edging bits there. As Mrs makes up some new units.


With it all finally in place. Next up is building him a desk in the alcove to the left of the last pic. He has a poor desk in there at the moment, but want a better place for his computer and raspberry pi activities!

Oh, and I'd also like to get him a few cork mats that I can trim up and stick on his wall as a big pin board, so I think I'll get ordering some tiles now for that too.

Was pretty pleased for a days work for the difference it's made, even though it's not my place ha
 
bigjohnsonrichard said:
I bet your landlord is well happy youre paying to sort the floor in the bedroom :o
Click to expand...

Probably! We've so far had the dishwasher implode with water everywhere, which he had to replace (for a crap cheap one, no less), the boiler went in winter so we had no hot water for 4 days, which he had to replace and our oven went as well, which he blamed us for, even though it was a 20yr old cheap oven anyway!
I don't think he likes us as stuff stops working with us here :P

I honestly don't mind the 150ish it cost to do the floor for the difference it's made. Couldn't give a hoot if it lasts longer than our time here to be honest! A rug would have cost us similar!
 
The skirting was already there, but isn't very deep, so it didn't quite slot underneath the existing stuff. Especially when leaving 10mm around the edge, so I used some scotia, sort of thing anyway.
 
Russinating said:
Cheers. It's for an office we're moving into next month and I was looking at some from Wickes. Underlay works out at £45 and flooring about £180 (http://www.wickes.co.uk/african-walnut-laminate-flooring/invt/205598/). Not bad really for a 35sqm room.

Did you find you needed much excess wood for mistakes/finishing? We need 14.2 packs exactly so 15 gives us some excess but not much (just over 1 sq m).
Click to expand...

I found we did need a fair amount for finishing, as you can only use one side, the correct one that fits due to the grooves, and I did several measure once, cut several times, wrongly. (When you're measuring, if you flip the board over to draw the lines for cutting, then double check you're going to be cutting it right with the lips on the right side!)

I'd get a little wooden block (you can get proper things that you use to hit the boards together but I used a small bit of offcut oak I had) and a hammer, but when you're doing this, don't hit it against the groove of the plank. It sounds obviously, but on the ones we had they will crumple if you do this. The same with clamping the planks for cutting. Use a clamp that clamps over/under the wood if you can.

Also, make sure you leave your 8-12mm round the edges. Not only is it much easier to get the panels together, it's supposed to be a "floating" floor. For the edging, if you have skirting already you can use a scotia like I did, or some skirting that goes over the top of what is there also.

That's all I can think of at the moment though, you should be fine!
 
I'd probably start in that back right alcove if that was me. That way you work out towards the door!

You should be fine, just be methodical and mark the underside of your boards so you know what to cut and where they go. I'm just lucky the Mrs has a good attention to detail unlike me windmilling in!
 
Inspired by your bloody awesome job, and I like the colour you used, I think I'm going to give our lounge a go. The full downstairs has this vile vinyl down at the moment that always looks dirty and just hate it. Yes, rented place yada yada, but I figure if I spend a couple of hundred on making it nicer, it saves the Mrs chirping on about moving house, which will cost me more than a few hundred!

This is the current, vile vinyl.



See what I mean?! So this coming weekend, I'm jumping in and ripping it all up. Aiming for a similar colour to Russinating I think. The biggest thing doing this will be moving everything out to lay it. I think I'm going to shift it all to one end of the room and then move it back etc. around it. *shrug*
 
Good idea, that. Hopefully it's dry. We have 2 sets of French doors, so should be easy enough to get it out there.

We have guest over at the moment, but I'm aching to start tearing up the crap! I can't help it once I've set my mind on it lol
 
Luckily I do have a circular saw, but didn't need it for the other room, as it was so small. I might get a jigsaw, as I seem to have lost two of them!? (no doubt in the moves)

I'm going for the coving, scotia just like you did, and like I did on the other room. No point in ****ing about with removing the skirting as I swear it would pull half the wall down at the same time.

I know, right?! It's the same vinyl throughout the hall, kitchen, lounge and it's VILE! It always looks dirty, as that's just the awesome design of it and now it's lifting in places, it's even more awesome.

I'm tempted to get some more vinyl for the kitchen too. I would do laminate throughout, but laying it in the kitchen would be a nightmare around the bottoms of all the units and for ease, just a fresh bit of vinyl would make a hell of a difference. I'll see what deals they have in the hardware store.
 
That's a great transformation!

Just the colour I want as well. I went to go and do this, but it ended up causing a massive argument, which is always nice. Apparently doing this will not stop her wanting to move, so she wasn't going to get involved and had a strop.
"So, because you don't want to, it's not happening?"

Yes, that's it!

I went out and looked at BBQs instead.

I still hope to do this, even if we move at the end of the year. Who knows as I'm away this weekend, but we'll see...
 
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