Tips for DIY Laminate Floor Installation
With the popularity of laminate flooring for remodeling your home, many homeowners are saving money by installing it themselves. Here are a few tips to make your DIY laminate floor installation as easy and professional looking as possible.
First, pay attention to your padding or underlayment material, as it will form the foundation for your whole flooring job. Cork has become very popular and is considered the best option, but a combination pad like Quiet Step is a good, less expensive, choice. This type of padding has a built-in vapor barrier and tape, so you don't have to tape the seams by hand - just overlap the plastic vapor barrier, pull the strip off the tape, and it is sealed. Be careful not to overlap your padding, because it will cause a bump in the floor.
Start from an outside wall, if possible, because they tend to be straighter than interior walls. As you snap the rows together, the flooring itself will we straight, and you will just need to move it around to make it straight with the room. Always work so that you see the lock or groove side as you install each piece.
Doorways make a huge difference in the look of the finished floor. It doesn't matter if the flooring runs across or through the doorway, but the door jambs need to be undercut for it to fit and look right. Make sure you cut all the way back to the wall plate - removing that 1/2 " of drywall gives you more room to wiggle when installing the floor. Undercutting the baseboard about 6-8" on both sides of the door helps avoid holes at the door casings. If you can't get the material to snap or tap together, your may have to take a good sharp chisel and chisel the lip of the lock off, test fit your piece, then apply some wood glue in the lock and install the piece.
Not all laminate is snap together, some of it is tap together using a nylon tapping block. You have to be careful using them because it can damage the new material. If you look at a tapping block you will notice it has two profiles. One side is for tapping against the groove side of the material, the other is for the tongue side. You will need two of them because when you start hammering on it, the side you hit gets damaged by the hammer. With two blocks, you keep one for the tongue and the other for the groove. You will also need a pull bar for your last piece. The blocks and pull bar are not expensive.
Inspect every piece before you install, especially the corners. Nothing is worse than walking back into the room after making a cut or taking a break and seeing a broken or chipped corner 3 or 4 rows back from where you are working. Buying your flooring from a reliable source will cut down on the pieces that are damaged or have chips or peeling laminate in the box.
Do not install laminate in a full bath. It will void the warranty, and the laminate will not hold up well top being repeatedly wet.