Yesterday, I shared the progress we made on tearing out our old flooring. Today, we start laying the new flooring! I’ll keep things short since it’s been a lot of work and we’re still only halfway finished.
We started by laying out the planks we wanted to use. This approach let us easily design the pattern we wanted to use and adjust it before actually locking anything into place. The planks we purchased came in 4′ lengths with 3 different widths, but we tried to match grains and lay planks two long to create the illusion of an 8′ board instead. We also tried to stagger the darker and lighter boards to draw the eye along the main pathway into the living room.
Once we were happy with the patterns, we started snapping them together. The vinyl planks were relatively easy to work with. Cutting is a simple score-and-snap, and we figured out how to lock them together snugly after only a few runs. Custom cuts like those around air vents, corners, stairway, etc. were really the only thing that slowed us down.
Kudos to my wife for coming up with a handy way of marking custom cuts: a dry erase marker. Mark your cut, make your cut, then wipe away any excess marks. A real time saver.
We also had to do a little extra work to move or close up old intake vents:
We’ve finished flooring in the new entryway, the living room, some of the dining room, most of the kitchen, and the main hallway. All that’s left to do is finish the dining room and kitchen, the den, and the downstairs bathroom.
All-in-all, it’s taking a little longer than we expected, but we’re about halfway through and we’re really hitting our stride. We’re getting faster with our cuts and more precise with our locking. We’ve waited so long for this new flooring that this extra time seems inconsequential, though, and we’re having a lot of fun making this a reality.
This is day 19 of my 31 days of making.
