Interior Essence: Flooring reno

Step 1: Rip out old flooring.

Tools:

Pry bar, hammer, gloves,
safety glasses and ear protection.

(If needed: something to remove staples.
We used a flush cut saw and pliers)

Vinyl Floors

Or in my case four layers of old flooring... vinyl, subfloor, vinyl and vinyl tile!

Scrape and cut until floors smooth.

In some cases you may want to use a floor scraper, but with so many staples it was impossible here.

Carpeted floors
Rip it out, cut and roll it into 4' bundles.
Then remove tack strip (try to get the nails out too)

Step 2: Clean up and prep floors

Get rid of all nails and debris.

Step 3 and 4 tools:

Laminate flooring

square footage +20% for waste.

Underlayment

Square footage of your space.

Duct tape
Razor blade
T-square or quick square tool.
Fine tip marker
Hammer
Pull bar
Tapping block
Eye protection
Flush cut saw ( for edging)
circular saw for cutting laminate.

Step 3: Lay underlayment

(If you need subfloors see how here.)

Just lay it out and cut.

When you need to add more repeat process

the above and tape the two sheets together

Step 4: Laying the laminate

Start by snapping together your first row of boards.

Start with a half board to ensure a varying pattern.

Measuring, cutting and laying:

1st: Lay the last board (B) over the previous one (A).

2nd: Measure and cut board A.

3rd: Place B where A was.

4th: Lock into place.

Next Rows:

For all the rows following you will start with the end you just cut off of the previous row

Lay entire row, cut end and lock into place

(set into grooves, lift up and push gently until it locks in.)

If it doesn't lock right away, gently tap with a block and hammer where you see gaps.

If it still doesn't lock into place you may need to take it apart and try again.
(check to ensure nothing is blocking it from locking - even the smallest fleck of wood will do it)

Step 5: Trimming around corners and edges.