I have a small room, it's kind of a weird external room near my house. It's about 12' x 15' with heat and electricity. It has a slab foundation/concrete floor. It's been in place for MANY years, possibly 30+. I live in Southern California and the rain fall is very low. Anyway, the room has been used for many things and I suspect that at one point it was carpeted, but that has long since been removed. The last owner started to put linoleum flooring down. He was using those little squares not the full sheet. But he didn't finish and really didn't get all that far anyway, maybe one coarse. I would like to put laminate flooring in this room. So that's the back ground here are the questions. Do I need to pull up the squares? The seem to be glued in place very well. The concrete seems pretty smooth. Do I need to use some kind of leveler? A friend of mine was installing a tile floor and used this self leveling stuff. He poured it on and it smoothed the whole floor in preperation for the tile. Can I put the flooring right on top of the concrete or do I need a layer of plywood? Or something else? Thanks -Don

As part of a remodel, I took up about 100 s.f. of 50 year old oak strip flooring, the typical old stuff. I want to put it in the new space, which is about 150 s.f. I found hardwood floor that seems the same at Home Depot, but I can't find a source on the best way to blend the two. One small 3 ft. length will butt up against existing floor in a hallway. I thought I'd start there with the old floor, and when I run out of it I'd just start putting on the new stuff. I'll work my way back to the end of the room. There is a little difference in depth of the wear layer, since the old one was likely sanded once long ago. I realize I'll have to sand and finish the entire floor, new and old, after installing so that there is no height mismatch at the line where new meets old. Also, part of the new space is about a 10 ft long, 3 ft wide hallway. Is it typical to put full 3 ft. lengths for each strip, or to make it look more random by staggering some seams throughout?