Installing Laminate Flooring

Wow. I feel like a handyman.

We’re installing new flooring – laminate hardwood – on our main floor. Don’t let anyone fool you – it’s a lot of work. And we haven’t even started laying the floor yet.

First there’s the pulling up of the existing floor. That’s a bit of carpet that we had in the living and dining rooms – ugh! Pulling up carpet is a disgusting job, as those of you who have done it know. Seeing what’s under there should be enough to deter anyone from ever installing carpet in their home ever again.

Then there’s the job of removing the engineered hardwood flooring we had in our entryway, hall, and kitchen. We want one flooring material throughout the main floor, so this needed to go too. Another job and a half.

But then the fun really begins, as you hunt for joists under your plywood subfloor so you can shoot in lots of screws to GET RID OF THOSE LOUSY SQUEAKS. This is always fun, particularly in Canada where you can only get robertson screws, which frankly, suck hard. I don’t think they stay attached to the drill bit as nicely as philips screws. So you chew through a lot of screws.

Next up is underlay – this should be a nice easy step. Simply lay it down and tape it in place.

The critical step is actually getting the hardwood installed. We bought SwissLock laminate, made by kronospan, which is glueless and snaps together with metal clips. It’s supposed to be really good, environmentally friendly, doesn’t off-gas, long-lasting, etc. etc.

So we’re excited about putting it down, but you’ve got to (obviously) cut it to fit in certain corners, angles, etc. Hopefully this goes well. I bought a tablesaw to help with this, but I’m a rookie when it comes to physically cutting stuff up.

Ahh well. Back to work!

UPDATE:
The Swisslock really didn’t do the job. As soon as we installed it, it started clicking like mad. So we returned the lot of it and got Formica brand instead.