Thursday after class I went home and started packing up the bookshelf in the living room. It was time to prepare for the onslaught which is the laying down of the laminate floor! On Friday after work, Mike and I started moving out all the furniture from the living room. Surprisingly it all fit into the kitchen except for one chair that we simply left in the living room.
We then took the trim off the wall which wasn’t too hard at all (except for the one spot where I ripped some paint off the wall. Argh!) and I’m thinking we can salvage all of it to put back on the wall instead of buying all new trim.
We then went ahead and ripped up the carpet. I was interested to see how carpet was laid down. Essentially, a green foamy underlay is placed onto the subfloor first. Then (in our case), there were strips of wood running along the wall which had little nails sticking out of them. We’re talking thousands of little nails sticking out. When the carpet is laid down, this is what the carpet sticks to. There are different variations on this theme…gluing, stapling, etc.
We went to Home Depot to determine if we could simply leave the green underlay in, but we found out that we should strip it all up and put down the proper underlay (which we did).
Mike and I definitely had a hard time getting the carpet out of the living room as we were trying to keep it in one piece for Mom and Dad to bring down to Gaspe with them. I personally don’t think they will have much luck with that considering it’s the length of two cars, but nonetheless, we managed to stuff it into the garage but now we have to enter the garage from the front of the house as we can’t very well jump over it! We were going to roll it up with our helping hands on Saturday but it was too late by the time we were done.
We finished stripping the floor of everything by 11PM and we headed to bed. By 7:30AM I was back at it and I started to lay out the underlay and assembling the pieces. Mike joined me shortly after and pointed out that I had started out the first two rows the wrong way as it was supposed to flow from left to right and not the other way around! Not a big deal,we disassembled them and laid them out again and it was definitely easier! We were definitely having some problems with the first three rows and having them fit snugly and it wasn’t until later that we realized that if it wasn’t fitting properly, chances are there was something caught between the tongue and groove that we had to remove. We also found the secret of hitting the new row with a hammer to ensure a good seal between the two rows. I had bought a great kit that Rob’s dad had recommended which helped us immensely. It had spacers, a block to hammer with and a pull bar. Well worth the $21.
Vero and Duncan came over later with some muffins in tow and Vero went back out to pick up a few things. Vero was definitely an appreciated resource during the day as she was helping out with both the laying of the floor as well as keeping us well fed throughout the day. After they arrived, things seemed to pick up in pace until we hit the hallway and the better part of the day was spent cutting out notches around columns, cursing the gaps and general meandering around while careful calculations were performed. Mike had the hardest piece to calculate at one point with an angled wall falling into the equation and we were quite impressed when the piece fit after one cut!
By the time 8PM rolled in, we sat down for some good chicken supper and a beer and Mike had to get ready to go to a party so Duncan and I continued the quest to get it done. The hallway was done so we only had four more rows to lay out.
By 10PM we were outside in the driveway ripping panels to get a 2″ panel to run alongside the wall. We must have been quite the sight. Both of us wearing sunglasses as I didn’t know where the safety glasses were (as it was hard to get through the garage with the carpet in there), Duncan holding the flashlight above the saw so I could see where I was going, and a racket that would make a banshee ashamed. We did manage to put the last piece in around 10:30PM so all in all, it was a 15 hour job that entire day along with the hours of prep work from the Friday. Duncan, Vero and I sat down for a few beer and then headed to bed.
I now am fairly confident in laying down laminate. My brain works a little slower on the calcuation side of things in comparison to Duncan and Mike so all in all, we made a great team and even though we were sore all over the next day, I think we all had some fun during the day. I must admit that I feel the room is less cozy without the carpet and I swear on Sunday night while I was reading comics, it seemed a little cooler in the house. I am liking the look of it though and now I just have to get over the inherent fear of scratching the floor!
Next steps are to wait until Dad gets into town when he can help me put the trim back on. We also have to think about transition pieces as well as how to do the steps. Someone told me it took him 2 hours to lay out his living room and eight hours to handle one step! I think Dad loves to have little projects to do around my place so I’m glad that I can accommodate him!
For historical purposes, here’s some approximate pricing:
400 sq feet = $400 (plus tax) and I had 1.5 packs left over.
4 rolls of underlay = $100
1 accessory kit = $21
Total (not including all the beer and food) = $521 to do the entire living room and hallway.
Update! – June 11
Laying of the laminate floor is most definitely not over! On June 8-9, Mom, Dad, and Uncle Brent worked on laying out the trim around the floor. I helped them out on the Tuesday and let me tell you, I hate the finishing touches on things. It is a pain in the ass. Painting, bah. Filling in holes, bah. Mom and Vero graciously painted the pieces of trim on Monday night and we went ahead and rented an air nailer on Tuesday morning to put them in. An air nailer is a MUST HAVE when nailing the trim. I think if I only had a hammer and nails, I would have added ten hours to this job.
Dad said cutting the quarter round was a pain as it’s hard to figure out the angles. Mom and I spent the afternoon putting DAP (some type of putty) into all the nail holes and around the casings of the door. This was painful as I realized I will probably have to repaint my hallway after seeing what ripping off the casings did to my walls.
In the end, we managed to get 99% of the trim up along with the quarter round and all I need to do is to repaint all the DAPped spots. In terms of what needs to be done with the laminate itself, we need to lay the laminate on the step up into the hallway which may be prove to be a pain. I will see how painful that will be. Then I will put the transition pieces (where the kitchen floor meets the hallway).
So an update to how much the project is costing:
– New Trim and Quarter Round – $120
– Rental of the Air Nailer, along with the fuel cell, and some nails – $65
– A quart of white paint – ??? $20?
Also, I just realized that I only had three months to return laminate flooring so now I have 1.5 packs left over.
Grand total now: $726. Please note that the guy at Home Depot said any tool rentals is good for the tax rebate! So if I manage to break $1000, I should be good to go. I may very well hit that if I buy some more paint to do the hallway.