Hi all, My husband and I are intending on putting laminate in our bedroom. It is on the second floor of a house about 60 or more years old. Below the bedroom is the bathroom, kitchen and stairs to the basement. The bedroom floor seems (so far anyway) relatively flat....I am by no means saying level, but [I]flat[/I] which, from what I understand is the important thing for installing laminate. There is however one spot where it fairly abruptly slopes downwards a bit under 1 inch over 3 feet! Not cool. It slopes towards a door that is supposed to (I would assume) to a deck which wasn't installed (we just got the house last summer). We can see some of this area from underneath, from the stairway to the basement. I've drawn up some REALLY rough sketches, and taken some pictures. Please bare with me, sketches aren't to scale and the measurements are VERY rough, quick and dirty. [IMG]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-JwoMr4RtKrw/UU2eku-EOsI/AAAAAAAAALs/atQeLdF-zIQ/s542/Bedroom%2520plan.jpg[/IMG] And here is what is underneath....roughly: [IMG]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hpzCy5KQZng/UU2febw-ITI/AAAAAAAAAME/Nw4atT5JNIE/s477/underneath%2520plan.jpg[/IMG] Now, underneath there appears to be a board, which I have noted in red, that is underneath the floor joists in the vicinity of where things start sloping down. There is also some other lumber that has been attached to the floor structure for reasons unknown. Here are a couple of pictures of the area in question from underneath, taken from the door by the stairs, I'm sure the board is relatively obvious: [IMG]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5zvsXGN1quU/UU2faqUQ6GI/AAAAAAAAAL0/GEIJv0NBnl4/s640/IMG_1716.JPG[/IMG] [IMG]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4mK1AIGm0kE/UU2ffC_uNXI/AAAAAAAAAMM/IOohTPujSBQ/s640/IMG_1718.JPG[/IMG] The hose goes (I presume) to the exhaust fan in the bathroom. It is my theory (and correct me PLEASE if I'm off base) that the board and the other attached wood is causing some crowning in the joist, and if we remove it, or even replace it with a thinner board it will at very least minimize the crown and make it manageable with roofers felt, self leveler or whatever (something that will be decided once we can figure out how to deal with what I think is the root cause). There is currently lino on the bedroom floor that got a tear in it and is peeling up (YUCK), that we haven't removed fully yet. We haven't looked at the actual sub floor from above, or done detailed measurements of peaks and valleys. This seems to be the obvious and big one to look at first though, and is the only part of the floor accessible from underneath. If anybody has any thoughts or input on how to deal with this I would LOVE to hear it. I know this is kind of long, but I hope I've given enough clear detail that things make sense. My husband and I are newbies, so please be gentle! We're on a limited budget so we're hoping to figure out how to do this ourselves. We are handy, but are hoping not to get in too far over our heads or out of our budget. Thanks for reading!

I am installing a Quickstep laminate wood floor. My baseboard will remain in place as there is enough space between it and the concrete slab for both the underlayment and the flooring. In order to maintain the proper expansion gap I would like to use a spacer. Using wood or plastic spacers would make removing them from under the baseboard very difficult. Does anyone foresee a problem with using 1/2" backer rod ("caulk saver") as a spacer, and leaving it in place under the baseboards? I am thinking there would be enough give in the backer rod to allow the floor to move. If needed, I am going to finish the baseboards with 1/4 round or shoe moulding post install. Thanks for any help and insight you can give.