I'm installing laminate throughout the lower level of my house, and looking for some quick input on the installation direction. Below is the floor plan with an option I've thought of. The three colors represent three different levels: entryway/hallway (blue), 1 step down to kitchen/living/dining (orange), 2 steps down to living room (green).
I've read the various tips: parallel to longest side, parallel to source of light, parallel to length of hallway, etc. Unfortunately I can't follow all these tips. The option above keeps the direction the same everywhere without any transitions, and aligns with sources of light.
One possible change is to flip the lower living room (green) direction, due to the length of the room. This is how the previous laminate was installed, but the rest of the house is carpet/linoleum so there wasn't any other flooring direction to consider.
I would likely do it the opposite of your arrows. Perpendicular to the light coming in the windows. When you go the long direction toward the windows that your arrow show, you can often easily see any humps or dips in the floor. (Which you shouldn't have in the first place, but might have anyway.)
Thanks all for the response. Sounds like I just need to lay some planks out and see how it looks.
XSleeper, my initial thought was to run them opposite of the arrows like you say, mainly because that's the long side of the floorplan and it seems to flow nicer from the living room (green) and into the kitchen and dining area. And also flow better as you look into the living room (orange) from the entryway.
However, what I got hung up on was what to do with the entryway (blue). Seems I want it to run away from the entry door, as I have shown, for flow into the kitchen. But then would the transition look funky? Again, I'll just mock some up and see. Here's a picture of that area, and the steps I'll have to deal with.
After considering the transitions around the steps shown in the image I posted, I think I'm going to keep the directions in my original post. The main reason being that I plan to use a flush stair nose for all the steps rather than a standard overlap stair nose. The stair nose is fabricated from one of the flooring planks, so everything matches and you can maintain the click in connections. The trouble spot is the top of the step in the kitchen; if I switch directions in the kitchen I can't see a way to use one of these plank stair noses since it has nearly the width of a normal plank. I need the kitchen planks to run parallel to the flush stair nose to make it work as far as I can tell.
I plan to cover my basement concrete floor with vinyl plank flooring. I have already ordered LifeProof Comanche Hickory planks from Home Depot (SKU 1005397004). These planks have pre-attached underlayment. HD told me that a separate underlayment is not required and should not be used. The handyman who's going to install the flooring says, he has successfully installed flooring with separate underlayment even when the planks have pre-attached underlayment. He adds, sure you can do without it, but you'll get better results with separate underlayment below. His reasons are that it'll be better for thermal expansion of the planks due to temperature changes. Also, an extra layer of underlayment will result in a softer floor feel and will offer thermal insulation so that it will not get too cold in the winter nor too hot in the summer. What do the experts here suggest - get an extra layer of underlayment or not?
Hi,
I searched this issue on this and other forum but I'm not finding an example where someone had made this exact type of scratch.
Our sofa had anti-slip pads for each leg. It got moved which left black marks on the hardwood floors.
Shouldn't have done that in retrospect but I initially tried to rub them with the rough side of a sponge. As you can imagine, it wasn't good (see image 1.)
Then tried to apply olive oil to restore it after reading about this method on a couple websites. Looks a little better, see image 2.
Any advice on how to restore it fully? If it can be done using everyday products, all the better. Of course also open to suggestions for more specialized flooring products.
Thanks
[img]https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_6798_e0186e1b504734e08f80d02947896752eebe5513.jpg[/img]
[i]Image 1: Zooming in from about 20 ft[/i]
[img]https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_6799_b902bbd66dd0439b79bbc482e9b4b9adf1d7f5ae.jpg[/img]
[i]Image 2: After having applied olive oil for 5 min and wiped it with a cloth [/i]
01-24-22, 12:23 PM
