How to Install a Laminate Floor

Many homeowners are choosing to remodel their homes rather than buy new homes. Do-it-yourselfers are choosing all types of projects and one of the most popular home improvement projects is installing a laminate floor. Laminate flooring has made significant strides in the quality and look of the floor and is a popular choice for basement flooring.

Many people would not be able to tell the difference between a laminate floor in a traditional hardwood floor, and that's a good thing. Installing a laminate floor can be accomplished by any level of do-it-yourself homeowner. The tools you'll need are a tape measure, a handsaw, irreverent mallet, and a laminate flooring pull bar. Other handy items will be a utility knife, a hammer, nails, and underlayment pad. Obviously you will need to choose what type of laminate flooring you are going to install. Many people these days are choosing oak and walnut laminate floors.

You can choose cheap laminate flooring or the more expensive types such as Tarkett laminate flooring and Mannington Flooring. First things first if you have another style of flooring where you are going to install your new laminate floor you'll need to remove it. Whether that's carpet and pad or tile preparing the surface for your laminate flooring must be complete. If you are securing your flooring to a concrete floored a thin set layer may be applied.

You'll need to know how much laminate flooring and underlayment pad to buy so you will need to know the square footage of the room you are working with getting this measurement is as easy as measuring the area's footage from right to left then forward and back. Multiply these figures together and that is your square footage. Add a small percentage say 5 to 10% for scraps in ways.

First thing you want to do is take the underlayment pad and roll it out. You can connect the pieces with tape. Laminate flooring from different manufacturers can ask different ways. Most let flooring simply snaps together. Laminate flooring floats in other words it's a floating floor means that all the connected to itself but not necessarily the house with this in mind make sure you keep the quarter-inch clearance at each wall.

You can use spacers at the wall that she began the process with. As you begin to lay down your pieces of laminate flooring you will notice that your flooring will pull away from each other and you can use your rubber mallet to bang the pieces back into place and secure them.

One of the greatest things about laminate flooring is if you mess up a piece it is simple to replace it. Think about laminate flooring as you were building a puzzle layout each piece, fit each piece and snap into place. It really is that easy once you finish your flooring you can concentrate on baseboards and finishing off your project to make it look professional.