- Today, we are gonna show you
how to install laminate flooring in this room.
This is a 12-by-10 bedroom.
I think it is called a gray oak.
So it's simulated gray wood look.
So let's get right into it.
All right, so here's the room now
with the wood planks in here.
Now, these have already been soaking
in the environment here for 48 hours.
So what we're putting in here is silver oak color.
You could see here, the rating is AC 4
which means heavy residential or light commercial.
So what we're going to show you today
is just a quick way to install it.
And if you want more details,
we have our other video on how to install laminate flooring
that goes into much more details
about prepping the floor and everything.
But for this, we're just going to show you
how to put some quick and dirty laminate down.
Now, for the first row,
you can see we have three planks
that we're just dry-fitting right here.
You can see that you'd be left
with too small of a piece at the corner here.
But also, another monkey wrench
the manufacturer throws in for you
is they want no piece to be less than 16 inches.
They tell you that if you're gonna end up
with a piece smaller than 16 inches here at the end
that you have to cut that first piece down at the beginning.
So what we're going to do now it is figure out,
let's figure out a 16-inch cut.
So we'll move all of these up here to figure out 16 inches
to make a cut at the end here
and then we'll have to adjust
the length of that first plank.
Okay, so there is our 16-inch piece
that we left at the end of the first row
and now we have one plank, two planks,
and we're gonna have to cut this first plank here.
And then, remember,
we're going to be putting a transition piece right here.
So you have to be able to figure out how to cut this thing
to allow it to expand underneath the transition piece.
See, we know, when we put this T mold case down,
it's gonna bridge between this tile
and the laminate floor here, see?
So we have to cut it so that it will be underneath.
See that overhang is right there?
So we just have to cut it.
But how are we gonna cut it around the door?
Well, I like to use my little contour tool here,
and these are kinda nice.
It gives you the exact size, shape, and everything.
It follows the contour
of whatever you need to cut up against, see?
So when we pull it around here and show it,
you can see it's got
the exact contour around the door frame.
And then we'll put it right here and trace it on the wood.
But just one thing to keep in mind, we have to back off.
(saw whirring)
All right, so we had to cut around the corner there.
The molding is in place there.
That's our reference molding
to just tell us if we have the right distance.
So now, we're going to take the second piece here.
And you look out, you always want this ledge here
to stick out on the right
so that the overhang on your second piece will come in.
You notice how this one here has the underlayment
already on the bottom of the plank which is nice,
it saves you a lot of time.
You don't have to roll out rolls of underlayment.
So it comes in right here, you line it up,
and you lay it down.
And they tell you not to hammer these.
Manufacturers specifically says to do not hammer these.
So the first two or three rows
are gonna be the most difficult
because they're gonna be loose and moving around and stuff
until we get all the spacers set in here,
and keep them 3/8 of an inch away from the wall,
and then once we're out a couple of rows,
we'll put a few boxes of the wood floor right on here
to weigh it down so that it won't move 'em.
All right, now, for the last piece, we don't ever measure,
I don't use my tape measure for that.
What we do is we take the piece
and we put it in the orientation that it's going to be in,
then you flip it end over end just like this.
Lay it down.
You figure 3/8 inch from the wall 'cause that's the spacing
that the manufacturer wants us to adhere to.
Once you have that set, you come over here,
you look right down here
where it's gonna meet up to the other plank,
and you mark it.
You can make that mark right there.
That's where we're going to cut our piece.
That way, when we're done,
we know it's going to be exactly that long
and then this remainder piece will start the second.
(saw whirring)
Okay, so there we go, our first row is down.
And don't worry about the fact
that we don't have the spacers there yet.
It doesn't really help us at this point
until we have two or three rows going
to get everything set up there.
We just wanna get the pieces down and working.
Okay, so the problem we have is now we lay this piece down
to be the second row but the problem is is now,
we're too close to this previous line here
and they don't want you to be any closer than eight inches.
So what we could do is...
And most board manufacturers, by the way,
they tell you to be as far away as the width of the board.
So in this case, this board's about six inches,
almost 6 1/2 inches.
They want you to be eight inches though.
So we wanna make sure that we're eight inches away from that
and now we put a square about here.
Okay.
So we can go ahead and do that and still make sure
that we have a minimum of a 16-inch board.
So it can get a little tricky
to make sure you're satisfying the requirements here,
and we do, 'cause this will be approximately 26 inches
by the time we're done.
Okay, so now, we move the molding out of the way
and we're going to line this up perfectly
with the first piece in to come down.
And so then we can just go ahead
and start laying down full pieces
until we get to the end of this.
Hey, one thing I remember:
you always wanna make sure you're grabbing
from multiple boxes to make them look more random
because if you were to lay down a bunch of planks
that all came from the same box, from the same lot,
they could look the same
and then you'll see another group
of planks that look the same
and it will look like a checkerboard pattern.
You don't want that.
You want them to look random.
All right, so we've completed the first two rows
and I now have the end piece from the end of the second row
to bring it over here to start the third row
and we have the same issue again
so we wanna make sure that we're eight inches
from line to line there.
So we can cut this piece like this.
And then we wanna make sure we're satisfying the other row
that were least 16 inches long which we are.
All right, so here we are the next day.
If you remember, we used to have a green wall here.
The painters came in and painted
so we had to have a little work stoppage there.
So we have our first three rows in, one, two, three,
and then the boxes are on top of them.
So everything's perfect now, they're nice and tight
and absolutely perfectly straight and weighed down.
So now this fourth row here that we're dry-fitting right now
should click in perfectly.
So if you recall, the pattern we had there,
we didn't start with a full length piece on the first row.
That's about 75%.
That's about 2/3 and then the one under, it's a half.
That's it right there.
So what we wanna do now
is we wanna start with a full-length piece here.
I'm gonna break that pattern
and then we're going to do these two pieces here.
But then look what happens at the end.
I can't just end that piece and do a little stub
so what I have to do here on this piece,
we have to do what's called a butt joint.
So here's the piece here and I'm going to cut it right here.
See that line that we made there?
We gotta make sure that we're eight inches away
from the previous line there
to make sure we're conforming to that rule.
So we'll cut it there
and that means we have to cut another piece
that's going to be about half of a plank
but they will both be smooth
because if I cut this right here,
there won't be a ledge like this for the board to sit on.
So we'll just have a half piece here and a half piece here
and they'll be abutted and that's fine, a butt joint is okay
because it'll be held in place on this side and on this side
and once the whole floor is in,
everything will be just perfect.
You can do a butt joint every few rows or so.
I try not to do 'em more than four or five rows,
every four or five rows.
Okay, now we take that measurement there for that piece.
Okay.
That row is now done.
Okay, so now with that last piece in on the fourth row,
the cut piece now comes up here
and starts the fifth row up here.
So now that we have four rows on here,
we have enough weight down on the floor,
we can start pulling the planks from these boxes here,
mix them up, make them random,
and start continuing across the floor here.
Oh, here we are.
We have about 80% of them laid out
and what we did is we just dry fitted
the last four or five rows here
and we're gonna quickly mark and cut all of them
and get them into place.
Okay, so we just cut this piece here on the table saw.
Table saws are great
for cutting out the notch outs like this
'cause you cut this way and then you cut this way.
This will go for the door frame for the closet door.
Okay, so now that we have the floor about 95% done,
we're on the very last row here.
And what typically happens on your last row
is you end up with maybe half a piece or so.
So here's our plank and obviously it's not gonna fit.
So what we do is you gotta remember,
you have to leave 3/8 of an inch space
up against the wall there and then we're going to rip it.
This is called a rip cup
when you go straight down the plank,
the whole length of the plank here.
So these pieces will end up
being probably close to two inches wide
when we're done cutting them
and we have to do this whole row like that.
So we do that out on the table saw.
(saw whirring)
(footsteps pattering)
Hmm, not good.
So here's that nice, strange cut,
all made to go around my little door jam piece.
Well, here's the main course of the bedroom completed here.
And then as we look into the closet here,
we can see we got it with just a couple of small cuts.
And most of the rest were these pieces here.
And surprisingly, out of 13 cases of wood,
this is all that we were left with.
We guessed pretty exact.
We didn't have to go back to buy any more boxes
and we didn't have to return any boxes either.
Now, as you look across the floor here,
you'll notice where all of our cut lines are here.
You notice how we try not
to create a repeating pattern of any type
so that looks very random as you look across the floor
where all of our cuts are.
That's the way you really wanna cut your floor planks
when you're doing wood floors
or when you're installing laminate flooring like this.
Don't do what I see other people do
where they do the H pattern.
You would see this line and then you'd see it again there
and then you'd see it again there and all the way across.
Too many people do that and it just looks very unsightly
and it's distracting and you see it immediately
as soon as you walk in.
So you can see right here at the beginning,
there's your first three planks here
and then I switch to a full one.
And then theoretically,
you would start the pattern over again
but I try to go at least four or five rows
before having to repeat again.
Sometimes, that may mean
that when you get to the end of a row over here,
that you don't take that cut piece.
It might mean that you sacrifice a whole piece
to make another cut piece of a different length here
than you've already used.
That way, you're not repeating the pattern.
So you can see here with this one,
we went with a medium-sized piece here
instead of other sizes like smaller ones like the back here.
So that's what you wanna try to keep in mind
to randomize your planks
is to try to not get any noticeable pattern starting.
And it's a little bit of a trick
and it does not waste a lot of wood like people think
because whatever pieces you cut,
you can use them for other places.
So I used them all further down the line here and here
and over here and then I used some in the closets
where nobody cares,
the back parts of a closet where no one cares.
That's what you do with those pieces.
Okay, so now we have our moldings in place there,
our T molding that transitions
the wood floor here to the tile floor,
and then as you see, here we've installed the baseboard.
So we always come in with 5 1/2-inch tall baseboard
to replace these skinny little two-inch baseboards
that the builders give you,
so it just looks a lot nicer, a lot classier.
We use this profile quite a bit here.
Now, as we look into the closet here,
you can see we didn't do a baseboard in here,
we just did a little bit of shoe rail in here.
But the closet came out pretty nice as well.
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(lively rock music)