Installing a Bedroom Floor

On Sunday morning, I had every intention of purchasing a laminate floor to go in the bedroom. I was so ready to get off the couch and sleep in my own bed! But first, of course, I had to get the flooring to go in there, and get it completely laid down so the room would be ready for me to move into it. So, Sunday morning we went off to Home Depot, with every intention of purchasing the laminate and the padding to go beneath it. We arrived, and looked closely at the cheap display at the front of the store, then took a sample with us to the back where the rest of the laminate was to compare. It was actually kind of depressing to look at the cheap laminate, made mostly from compressed cardboard, and compare it to the better quality which was made from real wood. Finally, though, I pretty much decided on one of the cheaper laminates (but not quite as cheap as the front display), when we decided to chat with someone in flooring and get some information.

Justin was the guy we ended up talking to, and he explained a lot about the differences in the laminate. For one thing, the cheaper type (made from cardboard) was most definitely not waterproof. So, even a small spill might cause the flooring to swell up. Of course, I always take a glass of water with me at night to sit on the nightstand, and I've been known to knock that glass over when I sleepily reach for it in the middle of the night. So, I wasn't too keen on the idea of cheap laminate anymore. I was actually starting to think perhaps carpeting was going to be my best bet, even though that would mean it wouldn't get laid down that day. And then of course I dismissed that and started looking at the other types of laminate. However, the type made from wood lacked one feature that the cardboard type had: the pieces didn't interlock. The cardboard laminate is based on a modified tongue-and-groove type arrangement. Each "tongue" and "groove" features a lip that interlocks with each other and, once locked in place, will not separate. The wooden laminate planks didn't have this feature. They would require actually being glued together to keep from seperating (with their actual tongue-and-groove feature). In addition, while the floor could float that way, it would actually be a better arrangement to either glue or nail down each plank to the subfloor. Again, this would probably mean I wouldn't have a floor laid down that day.

At this point, Justin mentioned that there was another possibility. He lead us to the aisle that contains the vinyl planking. This type of floor is called Allure, and it's made by TrafficMaster. He showed us samples of it, showed how easy it is to lay it down and how the self-adhesive tabs intermesh with each other to provide a water-tight seam. He also showed us how to cut the pieces, by scoring them with a razor and then snapping the piece along the scoring. They had three types of hardwood vinyl planking in stock, as well as four types of vinyl sections that emulate ceramic or stone tiles. One big selling point on the Allure is that it follows the contour of the subfloor; if it's not exactly level, the Allure will simply flow with the dips, whereas the laminate would probably crack under the strain of not being level over time. So, I made the decision to go with the Cherry hardwood design of the Allure.

My bedroom is roughly 175 square feet (counting the section carved out for the bathroom hallway) and not counting the closet. However, that afforementioned hallway section and the closet are roughly the same size, so I would need the full 175 square feet of flooring, plus some extra for waste and what-have-you. Each box of the Allure contained 24 square feet, so I needed 8 boxes. At $1.79 a square foot, it was almost three times the $0.68 a square foot of the original cheap laminate. Of course, adding the very cheaply-made padding, at $0.25 a square foot, would have increased the price of the laminate to almost $1 a square foot, so the Allure, which does not require padding, was actually less than twice the price I would have paid for the laminate. And much more practical! Not to mention very pretty. Although I debated the choice of the three available, there really was no choice; I'd fallen in love with the Cherry color and design from the outset.

So, we brought the 8 boxes back, and started right in. And it was very easy going. We'd score off what we needed to fit a plank along one wall or another, although neither of us can cut a straight line to save our lives. The most difficult part was the closet. Having to cut out for the door frame (since we wanted the planks in the closet to line up perfectly and "flow" with the planks in the room), and cutting down the planks to fit inside the closet, slowed us down some.

And of course we staggered each plank, since we didn't want the seams lining up. However, the staggering was "controlled". Rather than a random staggering, we staggered it so every other line of plank matched up. It just looked tidier to us that way. Anyway, we continued on until we had to stop (we had to go do some other things besides just put down the floor), but we managed to get most of it done. The only part lacking is a single line along the wall the door is in, a line inside the closet, and a very few small sections that need to be cut out.

The color of the floor shows up well here, although our clutter is all over the place! Those sheets of paper were between each plank in the boxes to help protect the glue on the tabs. In the foreground, you can see the square and the razor knife we used for scoring each piece as necessary, and to the left you can see a couple of the small pieces after they were scored out of the longer planks.

On Monday, I went ahead and put down the baseboards along two of the walls (the longest pieces of baseboard), which makes part of the room look so complete!

In the second and third pics above, you can see the line of planks we still need to finish along the wall that has the door. But isn't it gorgeous? I'm thrilled beyond words for the bedroom to be even this completed! In fact, it was complete enough that on Monday I also went ahead and moved my bed into the room.

For some reason, the bedskirt looks really odd in this photograph. Anyway, of course I couldn't just sleep in a room that didn't have curtains up to the windows! So, I had to go curtain-shopping that evening. I had seen some at Ross Dress For Less that I'd liked, so I went there first. And they had only one left! Of course, one wasn't going to cut it, and I sure couldn't get that one and just hope to find three more to match it elsewhere! So I then went to TJ Maxx, thinking that maybe they'd have some nice deals on curtains. Well, I finally found four panels there that I truly liked (very similar to the ones I'd liked at Ross), but faced a small dilemma. Two of the panels had clearance prices on them, the other two were regular price. Well, I figured surely they'll let me have all four for the clearance price, since they were the same curtain. Boy, did I figure wrong! The sales clerk gave me some crazy reason, that the two on clearance were from August while the two that were regular price were from September. That made no sense at all, since they were the exact (and I do mean exact) curtains, so I asked to speak with a manager. The manager was no help at all; she wouldn't budge and claimed it was store policy (I'm still considering visiting the TJ Maxx website and lodging a complaint) and that it didn't matter if it was the same curtain, that what counted was the month each one arrived. Grr. So I went ahead and got the curtains for $10 more than they should have cost, and didn't get the $10 rug I wanted for next to my bed as a result. In any case, I now have curtains up!

I'm very proud of my bedroom, and overjoyed that for the last 2 nights I've been sleeping in my bed and not on the sofa!