One of the projects
my favorite wife wants me to do I've been wanting to do was rip out the carpet in the living room and replace it with hardwood floors. Wife wants to rip out all carpet in the house, but I'm not so sure about that. I wanted to rip it out because the previous owners had indoor dogs, and you know what happens with pets indoors. At any rate, I've been
cheap and hardheaded looking and pricing for a while, until I found this little store on the south side of town that sold flooring cheap. 15 boxes later, all shoved in the back seat of the ford focus, we have new flooring.
Its laminate flooring, not real hardwood. Its
cheap inexpensive too. $.89 per square foot. Yep you read that right eighty nine cents a square foot. So cheap I was afraid to buy it cheap. The store had about 8 square feet on display, and it looked really good. The problem I've seen with most laminates is they just look plastic. Especially the ones with the texture really close together.
I The wife did not want a smooth floor because it leaves streaks when you clean it. At our house in Colorado footprints and streaks showed up very well. This one is textured but its a larger texture.
Picked it up on a Thursday night and started ripping out the carpet then. I've ripped out carpet before, and expected a mess, luckily I was surprised. Though I could see where the dogs had gone to the bathroom a lot of times. Our dogs will go in a certain spot on the carpet pretty often as well. Another reason we wanted to rip out the carpet.
My living room had one section of carpet surrounded by tile. This area is only 272 square feet. I guess it only took about an hour to rip out the old stuff, and tear up the tack strips. Also had to replace one tile. Luckily there were more in the attic.
The DIY shows sure do make it look easy to put this stuff in. It took me close to 3 hours to get about 5 rows down before I gave up for the night. Once my neighbor came over the next day, the rest of the flooring went down in about 3 hours. It only really took
me us a day to get the flooring down. Here is the finished product sans transition. Pretty simple overall.
So
my loving wife I decide this last weekend to finish it for reals, and add the transition. Mostly I was waitin on payday. The dang transition cost half the price of the flooring! I was well...floored! Straight edges are easy, and I
was lazy figured I could keep a 90 and just cut a 45 and it would fit in the angle.... um no. The two pieces below are actually the same width. Back to the drawing board....Ended up cutting each piece at 22.5 degrees to make the 45 deg angle. That's probably common sense to everyone else.
The other little area I had to fix was at the door jamb of the hallway. It wasn't a mistake I made thankfully, just how it all came together and needed a little touch up. Here is the original picture, and then what I did to it. Basically cut a piece of transition in half and glued it in place. It just cleans it up.
For the most part the T Transition was easy. I bought a flooring that was the same height as my tile. I just did not put enough space around the edge of the floor so I had to take a circular saw and cut it. Yes cut it indoors. Yes, sawdust is everywhere. Yes I know.....And finally here is the finished product. I think it turned out great and the wife likes it to. The dogs are not used to it yet, and I worry the big Lab will slip and hurt himself. I think he is mad at us for pulling out the carpet. He sleeps on the rug in the kitchen now. I swear he is the most pathetic dog in the world.
Finally some lessons learned. I cant stress this enough, buy, beg, borrow, but get the RIGHT tool for the job. I'm cheap, and hardheaded. This is not a good combination for DIY projects. The right tools make it easier, and much nicer in the end. Lots less flowery 4 letter words, and back pains. And as I write this contemplating the next project (stacked stone wall), I wonder how I can get away with doing it cheaper.....Oh and get a competent neighbor!
BT
