Hello. This weekend I am going to install a floating wood floor in our
bedroom. I bought the flooring at Home Depot and it is the kind that locks
into place. It is going on concrete and I am using a underlayment. Im
pretty handy but I have never done this before and am looking for a few tips
if anyone has any. The instructions make it clear to use 1/2 inch spacers
along the wall so the floor will have room to expand. 1/2 inch seems like a
lot but that is what it calls for. Has anyone else done this? My main
concern is that the bedroom has a fireplace and there are some tiles on the
floor in front of the fireplace. I was going to start in the other end of
the room and work towards the fireplace. I guess Im concerned that when I
get there it wont align up. I know it does not have to be perfect because I
have a wood strip to connect the two materials. Should I start the wood
with the tile? If anyone has done this type of job before, any tips or
suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tom

On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:02:40 GMT, "Joey"
wrote:

Hello. This weekend I am going to install a floating wood floor in our
bedroom. I bought the flooring at Home Depot and it is the kind that locks
into place. It is going on concrete and I am using a underlayment. Im
pretty handy but I have never done this before and am looking for a few tips
if anyone has any. The instructions make it clear to use 1/2 inch spacers
along the wall so the floor will have room to expand. 1/2 inch seems like a
lot but that is what it calls for. Has anyone else done this? My main
concern is that the bedroom has a fireplace and there are some tiles on the
floor in front of the fireplace. I was going to start in the other end of
the room and work towards the fireplace. I guess Im concerned that when I
get there it wont align up. I know it does not have to be perfect because I
have a wood strip to connect the two materials. Should I start the wood
with the tile? If anyone has done this type of job before, any tips or
suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tom


My package says to start along the main entrance way to the room as
that is what catches the eye the most. But it is just a suggestion.
You don't want your floor not being parallel to the main wall. Find
your main focal point and work from there.

On Jun 25, 8:50 pm, ValveJob wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:02:40 GMT, "Joey"
wrote:





Hello. This weekend I am going to install a floating wood floor in our
bedroom. I bought the flooring at Home Depot and it is the kind that locks
into place. It is going on concrete and I am using a underlayment. Im
pretty handy but I have never done this before and am looking for a few tips
if anyone has any. The instructions make it clear to use 1/2 inch spacers
along the wall so the floor will have room to expand. 1/2 inch seems like a
lot but that is what it calls for. Has anyone else done this? My main
concern is that the bedroom has a fireplace and there are some tiles on the
floor in front of the fireplace. I was going to start in the other end of
the room and work towards the fireplace. I guess Im concerned that when I
get there it wont align up. I know it does not have to be perfect because I
have a wood strip to connect the two materials. Should I start the wood
with the tile? If anyone has done this type of job before, any tips or
suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tom

My package says to start along the main entrance way to the room as
that is what catches the eye the most. But it is just a suggestion.
You don't want your floor not being parallel to the main wall. Find
your main focal point and work from there.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It should be aclimatised to your homes humidty or it will shrink if
you home is drier than the wood, I dont know how long that will take
but a day will not do it

"Joey" wrote in message
et...
The instructions make it clear to use 1/2 inch spacers along the wall so
the floor will have room to expand. 1/2 inch seems like a lot but that is
what it calls for. Has anyone else done this?

Nope, you're the first.

My main concern is that the bedroom has a fireplace and there are some
tiles on the floor in front of the fireplace. I was going to start in the
other end of the room and work towards the fireplace. I guess Im
concerned that when I get there it wont align up. I know it does not have
to be perfect because I have a wood strip to connect the two materials.

It probably won't line up perfectly. When you get to the tiles, just cut
the board to fit.

I used a miter saw set up on a stand to do the cutting needed on one end of
the room. Keep the seem staggered and in a random pattern.


Remove the baseboard or shoe molding and then bring the wood close enough to
be covered when you replace it; usually that 1/2" is about right. That
gives the best appearance. Mark your moldings and they will go back in the
same place. While off, it is a good time to clean and refinish them. Use a
jamb saw to undercut the door jambs without having to remove them.

In most cases, you want the long dimension of hte board to run the long
dimension of the room and perpendicular to the main light.

Once you get the first coupe of rows in lace, it goes quick and smooth. Get
that first strip as straight as possible so it ends straight on the other
side of the room and saves a lot of aggravation cutting the last board at an
angle.

On Jun 25, 8:02 pm, "Joey" wrote:
Hello. This weekend I am going to install a floating wood floor in our
bedroom. I bought the flooring at Home Depot and it is the kind that locks
into place. It is going on concrete and I am using a underlayment.

I did exactly the same thing about 3 months ago. Same situation -
floating interlocking wood over a slab with underlayment. I used the
combination underlayment, foam pad plus moisture barrier.

Edwin hit the high points pretty well, I'll just add a few more
details.

First, if your bedroom needs painting, might be a good idea to do that
BEFORE putting down your new wood floor, you can paint the baseboards
while they are off the wall, touch-up as necessary after replacing.
You don't want to get paint on that new wood floor. Definitely pull
off the baseboard and reinstall - I have seen installations that left
the baseboard on and put quarter-round over the gap - looks pretty
tacky.

The jamb saw works very well for the door trim, use a piece of the
flooring on top of the underlayment as a guide for how much to cut
off.

Before you start laying the boards, divide the width of the room by
the width of a board, you want to make sure you don't end up with a
fraction of an inch width left for your final row of boards. If that's
the case, you need to adjust the width of your first row accordingly.
Check the board width where your wood floor meets the fireplace tile
too. You may need to juggle the width of your first board to get a
good fit for both the last board and the fireplace junction.

One last piece of advice - if you have something like a bay window in
the room, such that the end of the board needs to be angled, you
definitely need to start laying the row of boards at the end of the
room that has the angled end. Otherwise when you try to use your tool
to snug the ends of the boards together, you won't get a very good
grip on the angled end. DAMHIKT.

Hope this helps,
Jerry

"Joey" wrote in message
et...
Hello. This weekend I am going to install a floating wood floor in our
bedroom. I bought the flooring at Home Depot and it is the kind that locks
into place. It is going on concrete and I am using a underlayment. Im
pretty handy but I have never done this before and am looking for a few
tips if anyone has any. The instructions make it clear to use 1/2 inch
spacers along the wall so the floor will have room to expand. 1/2 inch
seems like a lot but that is what it calls for. Has anyone else done
this? My main concern is that the bedroom has a fireplace and there are
some tiles on the floor in front of the fireplace. I was going to start
in the other end of the room and work towards the fireplace. I guess Im
concerned that when I get there it wont align up. I know it does not have
to be perfect because I have a wood strip to connect the two materials.
Should I start the wood with the tile? If anyone has done this type of
job before, any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tom


Thanks everyone for the advice. I already have painted the walls and
removed the baseboard and bought new taller baseboard. I will let you know
how it goes. Thanks again.

Tom

"Joey" wrote in message
et...
Hello. This weekend I am going to install a floating wood floor in our
bedroom. I bought the flooring at Home Depot and it is the kind that locks
into place. It is going on concrete and I am using a underlayment. Im
pretty handy but I have never done this before and am looking for a few
tips if anyone has any. The instructions make it clear to use 1/2 inch
spacers along the wall so the floor will have room to expand. 1/2 inch
seems like a lot but that is what it calls for. Has anyone else done
this? My main concern is that the bedroom has a fireplace and there are
some tiles on the floor in front of the fireplace. I was going to start
in the other end of the room and work towards the fireplace. I guess Im
concerned that when I get there it wont align up. I know it does not have
to be perfect because I have a wood strip to connect the two materials.
Should I start the wood with the tile? If anyone has done this type of
job before, any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tom


Ok Im back again with a couple more questions. Can I make my own spacers
out of wood or do I need to buy spacers. Home Depot does not have 1/2 inch
spacers. My next question is more complicated. Where the tile meets the
wood by the fireplace I will need to use an reducer strip. I was watching a
pergo video and they use a metal strip that the wood strip fits into. Can I
bypass that strip and use glue to fasten the reducer molding? I don't want
to have to try to drill screws into concrete. Thanks again.

Tom

On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:17:03 GMT, "Joey"
wrote:

. I was watching a
pergo video and they use a metal strip that the wood strip fits into. Can I
bypass that strip and use glue to fasten the reducer molding? I don't want
to have to try to drill screws into concrete. Thanks again.

I have never done this and have no idea what the purpose of it is, but
you could also use glue to attach the metal stip.

Tom

On Jun 27, 6:17 pm, "Joey" wrote:

Ok Im back again with a couple more questions. Can I make my own spacers
out of wood or do I need to buy spacers.

I made my own from scrap - just make your spacers thinner than the
base thickness of your baseboard, so you don't end up with gaps
showing when you put the baseboard back on.

My next question is more complicated. Where the tile meets the
wood by the fireplace I will need to use an reducer strip. I was watching a
pergo video and they use a metal strip that the wood strip fits into. Can I
bypass that strip and use glue to fasten the reducer molding?

I couldn't use the metal clip stuff because of the relative heights of
the tile vs. the wood flooring. Matter of fact, had to do a little
creative milling with a router table to get the transition to sit
right. Just tacked it down in a few spots with construction adhesive -
hopefully won't have to destroy too much if it ever has to come up. I
was a little reluctant to screw the transition strip down, didn't want
to take the chance of cracking the adjacent tile while drilling the
concrete floor.

Jerry