Flooring Q&A from my Aunt Vicky

So last night before we posted out our latest blog report I got an email from my Aunt Vicky (out in Nashville) asking about flooring. As I went through her questions I realized the answers I were giving would, well, make a great blog post. So here we go:

Q: How are things going with the house? How are you and Christina?

A: We're doing really well, and really excited about having the house coming along as well as it has. (Sweet, that was a softball question)

Q: How much trouble was it to install?

A: Relatively easy, but you really need at least 2 people. Takes probably 20 man hours for the 360 square feet we had. (Thanks again Jeff)

Q: How easy does it cut?

A: Very easily with a miter saw. I picked one up for $140 and I love it. A table saw would be nice for ripping long pieces of laminate (for edges and corners of rooms), but a circular saw will get the job done. (I bought a Hitachi 10” miter saw. It really is great)

Q: How hard are the last pieces to install?

A: Surprisingly easy, but we got lucky. Our room was just wide enough to fit almost an exactly even number of planks.

Q: If you install it over linoleum, do you think you still have to put the barrier liner down? What type of tape did you use to hold that together?

A: I would say yes to the barrier/underlayment. It helps the feel. Costs ~ $0.25/square foot, and goes down in long strips running side-by-side. Ours included an adhesive strip along one edge that sticks each row to the others; for end-by-end joints we used Duct Tape (yellow to be exact).

Q: How long did it take you to do the whole floor?

A: Most of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday eve. At least an hour per 15 feet.

Q: If you have half the floor done, can you move furniture on it at that point or does the whole floor need to be down before putting furniture back on it?

A: I would say depends on the furniture. Lighter chairs and table? I would say yes. Piano, I'm thinking no, at least until you have a good 10 or 15 feet wide done. You still want the floor to have some movement while you piece it together. We had a couch on our partial floor as we finished and had no problems.

Well, that's a good start on my questions :)

Yes it was.

So, now that you've all had a chance to read that, how about it? Send in your own questions and Christina and I would love to answer them (and questions make it so easy to distill all this info in our heads into little discrete bits of knowledge).

Also, you may notice the baseboard in that photo up top; that's right, just tonight we have finished the baseboards in the living room. That included 1 day for cutting and painting, a day for nailing and caulking, and the final day for patching and final paint (it's nice to break it up).