flooring

I wanted to show off my patch of a section of floor that was missing due to a heat register I had relocated a few years ago.  As you can see from the previous patch on the floor, this room has had quite a history of the registers being move around.  Stephanie had suggested stealing some of the flooring from a closet, so I robbed a piece from the coat closet and cut it down to size.  It came out pretty good, especially when compared to the giant, poorly thought out patch just in front of it.

After all trim installed

"New" flooring, borrowed from coat closet

Hole remaining after drywalling and adding base trim

Register in the wall when we bought the house

This weekend I finished up ALL the floors.  I’m a big fan of the laminate floors now.  In probably 20-24 hours of work, I was able to get the entire upstairs done by myself.  I can also say now that I’ve put it down that I’m really, really impressed with how well the laminate coped with some of the floor issues.  There were a few places that I laid down a layer or two of felt paper to smooth a transition or to bring up a low level, but otherwise the floor and it’s pre-attached padding dealt with the rest on its own.  I was actually shocked that the area in which I had spread the leveling compound in Chloe’s room was covered without a hitch.  There is just enough “give” in this material that it could probably deal with most normal floors without much prep at all.  I recommend the felt paper as an easy-to-work-with material for building up floors where you have to, but I honestly used MUCH less than I expected to.  I’d guess that most brands are similar at any given price point, but we will definitely give a thumbs up for the Pergo Accolade.

I started working on the upstairs floors this weekend, and it’s amazing how fast these laminate floors go in.  It took awhile to get into a good groove and figure out all the tricks (the rubber mallet is your friend), but once I did they went in about 3x as fast as the engineered wood we put into the kitchen.  In about 10 hours, I was able to finish 2/3 of our upstairs (450-500 square feet, with lots of walls and cut-outs).  While I’m still not convinced I’ll like them as much as wood, the click system is awesome, and I think they will hold up well over time.

Today we picked up our 42 boxes of Pergo and brought them upstairs to acclimate. We’re going to start laying them down this weekend, but you can get an idea of what they’ll look like with this sample patch I laid down. We are still trying to decide if we need to go with a separate underlayment or not. The boards have the pre-attached variety, but it Click to continue »

A lesson in reading directions…

On Saturday, after finishing the painting, I attempted to use leveling compound to even out some of the settling in Chloe’s room. Besides the overall slope from front to back, there was a dip along the center over the old stairwell. While the 2×4’s are strong enough for a floor, they weren’t big enough to hold the floor completely flat over the years. Knowing that the laminate floors really need a nice, flat surface, I figured that I’d better do something to improve the situation.

Believe it or not, I did actually read all the directions Click to continue »

We got the floors refinished just before moving in. This is one of about three things that we did hire out. Floor refinishing is an art, and it’s not one that you want to practice on 1,000 square feet of your own wood floors.

The floors in this house are continuous through the entire downstairs, even into the closets. That means that you have to do all of it at once to keep it looking right, as there are no transitions between rooms.

We opted to have them refinished without a stain, because we thought that the lighter color would help offset the dark woodwork. In the end, we feel that we made the right choice.

The new engineered oak floors.  They look great!

Chloe approves of the new tile floor!

Hex tile. We wanted an original look to the bathroom, so we decided to spend the extra money on hex tile vs. something more modern.

Stephanie created a design that looked as though it could have been there since 1911. Most people are surprised when we tell them that this floor is brand new. Click to continue »

Backerboard installed over the subfloor and floor patches.