You can remodel your home in stages to help alleviate the high cost of remodeling and to lessen the need to close off part of your house for an extended period of time. You can begin your remodeling job with your laminate floor installation.
You have two options. You can install the floor yourself or you can hire an installer. You will still need to choose the best brand of laminate wood flooring for your home, so your installer knows what to purchase if you go that route.
Depending on your home’s or office’s needs, you could turn to BerryAlloc High-Tech Laminate, which under testing showed itself to be the world’s strongest, most durable laminate floor. It works exceedingly well in high-traffic areas and hotels.
Among the other best laminate flooring options, you’ll find that AquaGuard and Armstrong Audacity make the best waterproof laminate flooring. Each company provides a lifetime warranty when used in a residential build but a 15-year warranty when used in a commercial build.
While those companies provide the choices best for laminate flooring, what if you want carpet instead? You can choose carpet laminate flooring to get the look of carpet with the ease of installation of laminate flooring. The best choice of those options is All American Carpet Tiles Victory, which comes in peel-and-stick squares that measure 23.5 inches by 23.5 inches.
When it is time to get new flooring, there is a dizzying array of possibilities on the market. Before you get flooring installation, you should know exactly what you need for your flooring. The best kind of laminate flooring is often the kind that has the texture and looks that you want for your floors. The best laminate brand flooring depends on what you are looking for as much as it depends on the look and quality of the laminate flooring. To start, you can make a list of the features you want in your flooring. You may want a certain feel, a certain look, or both.
The best laminate flooring options are high-quality models that will wear well and last a long time. The best laminate for kitchen floors is often a type that handles moisture well. When you use laminate flooring in any of the wet rooms in your home, make sure that it is resistant to water and will not be easily damaged by it. This aspect of laminate flooring is just as important as the way the flooring looks and wears. Find out as much as you can about the types that you are interested in and then choose.
If you’re determined to become part of the home improvement DIY craze, we applaud your enthusiasm – wood flooring, ceramic tile flooring, kitchen cabinetry, new shower stalls — it’s all very enticing, and the savings on a DIY project is substantial.
And yes, there are lots of little projects that you can implement without taking any major risks in dramatically screwing up the good look of your home interior. But often, especially with home improvement television shows, there isn’t enough time to explain potential pitfalls and troubleshooting. Instead, you get quick cutaway shots, montages, and time-lapse videos that make everything look super simple and hard to screw up, right? Wrong. And therein lies the problem with these shows. Online youtube tutorials are a better source for more explicit ‘do’s and dont’s,” be we thought we’d share some common things to avoid when installing laminate flooring.
The Most Important Tiles are the First
A relief to those that hate math, you needn’t bother trying to reconcile measurements for the whole room. Planning the entire floor like that will make you crazy and you’ll end up with calculations that get thrown off because of imperfections in the design of the floor, corners, out-of-square walls, etc. Definitely do measure the beginning of the project out as precisely as you can so as not to end up with unusable gaps. You will likely end up having to make some cuts on your last row regardless — don’t let this stress you out.
Do a Test Run, Then Cut
You will already have determined which direction you want the grain going. Now lay out your laminate pieces for a trial run, connecting them at the ends. If you have no cuts to deal with then start laying down the full planks. If you are going to have to make cuts with a circular saw, make them from the bottom of the laminate. If you are using a jig saw, do the opposite. This will ensure cleaner lines and reduce the chance of chipping on the decorated side.
The Installation Process
Use spacers to your left and also above the initial row (against the wall) as you begin laying the planks down. When reaching the gap at the end, lay the plank over the other board to the left and slide the right end and top corner up against the wall. Bend the left edge that’s hanging over the previous plank and begin to align your cut that way rather than trying to make the cut before you lay it down (naturally, you can’t do this with wood flooring and other materials that lack the right amount of ‘give’). Also, stagger the planks for a sturdier end product and a more natural look.
These are just a few suggestions, and there are loads of tricks and tips online for you to sift through once you decide on a DIY project. Whether you’re going to be working with vinyl tile flooring, wood flooring, paint, wallpaper, cabinetry, linoleum flooring, or shelving units, it’s always best to read ahead so you can head problems off at the pass.
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