Laminate flooring repair (well not repair, more like finish...)
 

We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can
fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can
then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging
and maybe it will not look that bad...
--

Rob Chafer
Silverfrost

Robert wrote:
We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can
fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can
then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging
and maybe it will not look that bad...
--

I would have thought you could get a little more laminate to fill the
gap - even if it is not an exact match it has to look better than
filler. Also laminate floors move as they expand and contract (which is
why you leave a gap of about quarter to half an inch around it) so I
would have thought that filler would not work!

Robert wrote:
We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can
fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can
then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging
and maybe it will not look that bad...
--

Sounds like a hell of a bodge job. How big is the room?, would it be
feasible to replace the whole floor? (this might be easier than bodging
a repair)

Failing that, have a look around and see if you can find a source for
the same laminate and buy a pack, cut enough into a strip (the rest of
each plank will have to be thrown) and fit this in place (being only 1
inch up against the wall you don't need to worry about strength so much
- so possible sand down the tongue to make this easier to fit, and glue
it in place.

Robert wrote:
We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can
fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can
then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging
and maybe it will not look that bad...

Erm! an item of furniture placed over it.

You havn't really said where it is?
i.e does it run parralel with wall is it running along the window wall?
can you hammer the other side to at least give you less gap for 1" beading?

In article ,
Robert wrote:

We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can
fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can
then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging
and maybe it will not look that bad...

There is a flexible filler for exactly that included in the ScrewFix
catalogue.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

as gg1000 said there is suppose to be a gap there which is covered with quadrant the same wood as the floor or skirting which you can buy seperately.

In message , Dazkb
writes

as gg1000 said there is suppose to be a gap there which is covered with
quadrant the same wood as the floor or skirting which you can buy
seperately.


Yes, but not an inch as the OP said, which is to big to be covered with
the beading.

gg1000 Wrote:
Robert wrote:-
We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the
room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful.

--
Chris French

In message , Robert
writes

We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one
room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room
and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with
a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or
more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can
fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can
then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging
and maybe it will not look that bad...

As some one else said, you can get coloured flexible fillers -
catalogues or flooring places.

However I don't think that would look to good either.

I think I would try a strip of flat wood - or something with just a
rounded end (what's that called?) - maybe fixed with blobs of selant or
something in the gap?
--
Chris French

I would suggest cork. It's compressible to accommodate expansion of the
laminate, and as it's a sort of wood should take woodstains to colour.

Seconded, this was how the laminate around the architraving was done in my
old house (not by me), and it looked fine. They'd also done the same around
the bottom of the stairs.

Thanks for all your replies.

It *looks* like they got to the end of the job and ran out of
laminate and bodged some of it with an off cut. An inch gap is being
charitable actually :( It varies down the wall from aout .5inches to 2
inches with a bit spliced in at an angle. The rest of the room
actually looks quite good which is why I am not keen on redoing the
whole room. I suspect it has been down quite a few years, 5+ maybe and
is in good condition apart from the laughable edge.

I suspect we will cover the area with furniture of some kind but would
like to at least make it look respectable first. I quite like the
idea of cork or some other laminate down the edge and I'll look in B&Q
to see if they have something similar.

I can try and take a picture if it would amuse?
--

Rob Chafer
Silverfrost

S=E9an Connolly wrote:

I would suggest cork. It's compressible to accommodate expansion of the
laminate, and as it's a sort of wood should take woodstains to colour.

Seconded, this was how the laminate around the architraving was done in my
old house (not by me), and it looked fine. They'd also done the same aro=
und
the bottom of the stairs.

I have the same issue, but the bottom of my stairs are rounded. Ok, I
can cut boards to fit round, but how do I bend the beading strip into a
tight radius ? I don't think it's possible. What have other people done
in curved areas where laminate/wood butts up with an expansion gap ?

Thanks

Paul.

I have the same issue, but the bottom of my stairs are rounded. Ok, I
can cut boards to fit round, but how do I bend the beading strip into a
tight radius ? I don't think it's possible. What have other people done
in curved areas where laminate/wood butts up with an expansion gap ?

In this case the bottom of the stairs were curved and they'd used cork to go
around the edge of the laminate.

To be honest you could hardly see see it because of the carpet on the stairs
anyway.