It's coming time to add the laminate flooring to the basement re-do, and
to add some variety and design appeal to the family rooms section, I
thought about the possibility of mixing shades of laminate flooring.
Kind of like the wood floor inlays in old houses, but nowhere near that
overboard since I'm no craftsman and, well, it's a basement. It would be
more along the lines of using a maple shade as a border and a medium
oak/mahogany shade as a main area color.

Anyone seen any examples of this in their surfing travels they can point
to?

Thanks mucho, muchachos.

AJS

In article ,
says...
It's coming time to add the laminate flooring to the basement re-do, and
to add some variety and design appeal to the family rooms section, I
thought about the possibility of mixing shades of laminate flooring.
Kind of like the wood floor inlays in old houses, but nowhere near that
overboard since I'm no craftsman and, well, it's a basement. It would be
more along the lines of using a maple shade as a border and a medium
oak/mahogany shade as a main area color.

Anyone seen any examples of this in their surfing travels they can point
to?

Thanks mucho, muchachos.

AJS


First, congratulations on what can be a great idea to easily add
character to the room. Now, tread carefully. Proper planning is
critical.

Working with Pergo (Pergo Premium, I think it was, from Home Depot), I
did this kind of a project in my basement, which is about 500 square
feet, mostly rectangular (say 16' by 28' but with an additional
rectangular section along one of the long axes).

Anyway, I wanted most of the floor to be Alpine Beech (very blond wood
grain, in 20 x 60 cm sections) but with a perimeter made out of square
Pergo stone-style tiles. This is the glued pergo, not the snap-together
stuff.

End result: it looks awesome, and now almost three years later I still
love it and smile with pride every time I enter the room.

The long story: Oh, boy did I screw up this job. Poor planning turned
an easy ~3 day job into 5 days days of hell. The normal way of laying
the 20x60 sections (I'll call them planks) is to stagger them so that
the seams don't line up. This adds strength to the floor. So, at the
edges in the long dimension, you cut the planks down so that each
successive row is staggered by 20 cm. Normally, this is an easy process
and if you are off by a few millimeters, no big deal. It gets covered by
trim at the wall edges. But, when the perimeter is made from the square
tiles, the staggered edges of the planks are now visible!

I planned for this, and had a router bit that would allow me to cut the
needed groove in the stagger-cut edges, and I bought extra tongues so
that I could connect it all together. But I didn't plan on how
difficult it would be to get the cuts EXACTLY right at the far edge of
the floor, so that they would line up for the perimeter on that side.

So, my big mistake was that doing the perimeter all around the inset
beech woodgrain was a mistake. I should have done it just along the
long sides, so that no precision cuts would not have been needed for
staggering the planks. Getting those cuts JUST RIGHT, and then having to
rout out the groove added days to the job.

But, I kept at it and got pretty darn good at it by the end. When I fit
in the last small piece, and later removed all the clamps from my new
floor, and dry-broomed it clean, the feeling of pride was immeasurable.
Several pros have been in since then and given me great feedback, though
one of them asked me what I learned in doing the floor and smiled
knowledgeably when I told him my story.

Have fun with your project.

Marc

In article ws.com,
MAG wrote:

In article ,
says...
It's coming time to add the laminate flooring to the basement re-do, and
to add some variety and design appeal to the family rooms section, I
thought about the possibility of mixing shades of laminate flooring.
Kind of like the wood floor inlays in old houses, but nowhere near that
overboard since I'm no craftsman and, well, it's a basement. It would be
more along the lines of using a maple shade as a border and a medium
oak/mahogany shade as a main area color.

Anyone seen any examples of this in their surfing travels they can point
to?

Thanks mucho, muchachos.

AJS


First, congratulations on what can be a great idea to easily add
character to the room. Now, tread carefully. Proper planning is
critical.

Working with Pergo (Pergo Premium, I think it was, from Home Depot), I
did this kind of a project in my basement, which is about 500 square
feet, mostly rectangular (say 16' by 28' but with an additional
rectangular section along one of the long axes).

Anyway, I wanted most of the floor to be Alpine Beech (very blond wood
grain, in 20 x 60 cm sections) but with a perimeter made out of square
Pergo stone-style tiles. This is the glued pergo, not the snap-together
stuff.

End result: it looks awesome, and now almost three years later I still
love it and smile with pride every time I enter the room.

The long story: Oh, boy did I screw up this job. Poor planning turned
an easy ~3 day job into 5 days days of hell. The normal way of laying
the 20x60 sections (I'll call them planks) is to stagger them so that
the seams don't line up. This adds strength to the floor. So, at the
edges in the long dimension, you cut the planks down so that each
successive row is staggered by 20 cm. Normally, this is an easy process
and if you are off by a few millimeters, no big deal. It gets covered by
trim at the wall edges. But, when the perimeter is made from the square
tiles, the staggered edges of the planks are now visible!

I planned for this, and had a router bit that would allow me to cut the
needed groove in the stagger-cut edges, and I bought extra tongues so
that I could connect it all together. But I didn't plan on how
difficult it would be to get the cuts EXACTLY right at the far edge of
the floor, so that they would line up for the perimeter on that side.

So, my big mistake was that doing the perimeter all around the inset
beech woodgrain was a mistake. I should have done it just along the
long sides, so that no precision cuts would not have been needed for
staggering the planks. Getting those cuts JUST RIGHT, and then having to
rout out the groove added days to the job.

But, I kept at it and got pretty darn good at it by the end. When I fit
in the last small piece, and later removed all the clamps from my new
floor, and dry-broomed it clean, the feeling of pride was immeasurable.
Several pros have been in since then and given me great feedback, though
one of them asked me what I learned in doing the floor and smiled
knowledgeably when I told him my story.

Have fun with your project.

Marc

Wow, Marc. Thanks for the input. It's always interesting to have even
more stuff to think about than you prviously thought you'd have to think
about

Anyway, one question for you since your situation is kinda close to mine
in that I'm also looking to have a perimeter edge to deal with: How or
why did stagger-cutting be/become an issue when dealing with your
perimeter matierial?

In my scenario (and I'll be using the snap-together lam, not glue-down
Pergo stuff), my other-color perimeter lam will be much like your tile.
At this point (and then again, I might be missing something in my
ignorance) for the section of border that travels left to right, I
thought I'd just cut the individual "planks" (leaving the tongue exposed
so the other/main-color "planks" will snap onto them) to a length that
matches the width of the individual "planks" the run in the up and down
direction for the other 2 walls. So in essence, those border-color
"planks" will be the base off which the main-color planks will work off.

I understand completely the idea that planks should be stagger-cut so
the seams don't line up so you get a stronger floor. But for the life of
me, I can't envision what you did along the edge of your Pergo "tile"
border that helped along the stagger-cut idea where tongue meets groove
at the other end of the "plank." I mean, if you have a set of tiles with
a uniform edge running along your room perimeter, all your lam floor
"planks" will just end up being straight-cut to be flush to your tiles,
no?

Or maybe I'll be like everyone else and see the light when I'm actually
doing it

AJS