Day 1 of the Laminate Flooring install

So today was the first day we worked on the flooring. We figured it would be simple, tear out cut up particle board, put down new piece, clean floor and it's all ready to go. Ah, well, not so.

First, we tore up the piece of floor that was cutout only to find that the tongue and groove floor underneath had not only been cut but they didn't put all the pieces back. They just kind of placed some of the pieces in there spaced out and nothing was nailed down. I guess that would explain the squeak.

Second, this is our own fault, but we forgot about the electric outlet in the floor and needed to do something with it. Off to the hardware store for the particle board and a junction box so we can seal it up. Since none of us have done electrical before, this was quite a feat. Mikey did a wonderful job splicing all the ends together so we still have the circuit to the other side of the room and mounting the junction box on the joist so we can just cover it over and not have to deal with any outlet again in the middle of the floor.

My job was finding some flooring up in the attic that matches the missing board. Well, I found something similar but had to rip it down to size. Apparently it was some seriously hard wood because the circular saw just refused to go through it at all, like the blade would stop and I had to use the table saw with the largest most coarse teeth I had. I got all of it in and sealed up the hole. This time I did something just totally crazy and nailed the boards to the joists! Then I had to cut out the particle board by taping together the one that I carefully tore out and using that as a template. It was mostly right. With a little shaving here and there, it all fit in. I got it all nailed and screwed down now.

Best thing of all??

THE FLOOR DOESN'T SQUEAK!

Next up to still finish off tonight is to get all of the staples out of the floor from the old padding and finish vacuuming. At that point, we're going to call it a night. Tomorrow it'll be on to cleaning up the floor and doing the skim coat. If all goes well, we'll be able to start laying the laminate tomorrow night.

Wish us luck!

posted by Unknown @ Monday, July 17, 2006