DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

want to do some sort of tiles, or wood flooring in the dining room of the new home.

what is totally a DIY project? one that we can't screw up?

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

the tile (stone material i.e. ceramic, porcelain, natural, etc..) ... you have to make sure your sub floor is level. You can really fudge up the floor and create problems down the road i.e. cracking, etc) if not done right.

In our kitchen, DH and I laid radiant heat, hired someone to lay a floating cement slab then tiled over it. It was hard work (trying to level everything...) but it was definitely doable --- you just have to make sure it is done right.

I never laid laminate flooring myself, but I believe (I use that loosely ) that while it has to be level, it has a little more leeway that stone.

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

You still need a level subfloor with hardwood or laminate. We laid laminate and it was really easy, IMO. We did it over a couple of days and the room was done. We did make sure the subfloor (cement) was level before we started. You need a saw to cut the wood (because you need to stagger the edges) and you can buy a kit to put the laminate in. We bought ours from lumber liquidators and they sell the kit for about $15 I believe.

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

We DIY'd laminate flooring in the kitchen. It was a floating floor that snapped together over the existing. So easy and took less than a day to do the entire kitchen.

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

we did laminate in our living/dining room and we are also putting it in our bedroom....we just haven't finished yet ....trying to do one room at a time...

my dad helped my DH get the hang of it and then DH pretty much did the entire floor himself....

i love hardwood and would have liked that better but it does scratch easier and it was more expensive....i didnt feel comfortable putting that much $$ into the flooring b/c i'm not sure if we'd make any of it back in re-sale...tile seems to be pretty big down here, you don't see wood floors that often...so we went with laminate to keep the budget down and to get the look we like...

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

so Nik makes me wonder... do any of you have dogs that could scratch the laminate floors? do they scratch? if i use my dyson on it, will it scratch those floors???

i am so dumb when it comes to this kind of flooring. we had real hardwoods that my dog's nails destroyed pretty quick after getting them refinished. plus, ladies heels and things...

would laminate be better? what's the price of laminate?

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

what about my bissell steam cleaner? can you clean the floors with this?

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

our dogs nails click when she walks or runs on our floor - i file them constantly (nails aren't supposed to hit the floor) but she has deformed nail beds and her quicks are soooo long but that's a whole other story

but her nails haven't done any damage to the flooring...we also had another type of laminate (the cheapest they sell at Home Depot) and her nails never did any damage to that floor either

my MIL had real wood floors and our dog scratched them

i think most dogs can scratch a real hardwood floor - at least in my opinion b/c every person i know that has hardwood floors and a dog has scratched floors - unless everyone i know has a delicate wood?

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

Posted by Nik211

our dogs nails click when she walks or runs on our floor - i file them constantly (nails aren't supposed to hit the floor) but she has deformed nail beds and her quicks are soooo long but that's a whole other story

but her nails haven't done any damage to the flooring...we also had another type of laminate (the cheapest they sell at Home Depot) and her nails never did any damage to that floor either

my MIL had real wood floors and our dog scratched them

i think most dogs can scratch a real hardwood floor - at least in my opinion b/c every person i know that has hardwood floors and a dog has scratched floors - unless everyone i know has a delicate wood?

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...

My father in law and I laid the Laminate flooring in Danielle and my house. It took a few days and was hard work. We have a cement slab which we laid down this plastic sheeting on. After the plastic sheeting we installed the floating floor. It is quite annoying because the cement slab wasnt 100% straight and there was some odd spots that would be spongy or uneven. First thing I would do was put down a level wood sub floor before laying any floating floor so u dont come across any of the problems my father in law and I came across.

Re: DIY flooring: hardwood, laminate, tiles, etc...