Carpet to Hardwood Flooring

Carpet to Hard Flooring

When we first bought the house, it had spotless, almost new carpet.  Having 2 dogs and friends constantly in and out of the elements, changed the condition of this once bright fluffy carpet, to matted up stain patches in a matter of months.

The door to the rear deck steps into carpet, and paw prints and the remnants of lost battles to stains were starting to become a norm on the carpet.

To combat the dirt stains, as well as ease some of the cleaning that was needed, almost daily, I decided to install hardwood flooring.


Looking at several options and having installation can make a flooring job quickly climb into the thousands of dollars... I decided to give this a try and save a few bucks.






At the hardware store, the clerk pointed out that the same reason I was going to hardwood, would soon ruin my hardwood floors... dog nails and wood floors don't mix.

After a quick internal bout, I decided to go with "Laminate." It doesn't even sound the same.... takes a bit of the allure from it, but decided on dogproof "PergoMax" in Newland Oak.

First step to the transformation is getting the carpet up. Mine only had one hold-down transition and went pretty easy. I rolled up the carpet, and exposed the padding and tack strips.

Ripped and rolled up the padding in similar fashion to the carpet, and removed the tack strips to prep the surface for the laminate.

Had to make sure to remove ALL staples left behind by the padding. Not doing so can cause bumps or uneven surfaces on the finished floor when the new plank is laid over top.

Clean and vacuum entire surface to pick up dust, as well as anything that may potentially unlevel the finished floor.

Pick a direction for the planks to run (usually the length of a room) and start laying the planks down.

The leader planks in this case needed to have the locking "nose" piece trimmed off to sit flat against the wall.

Quick Note: Make sure to get an installation kit ($20) if you're going to do laminate. The kit comes with squares, spacers and brackets necessary to tighten the planks against each other. Laminate is brittle and you could break the ends without using one of these kits.

                                                                                

Work your way down the wall, clicking the pieces into each other. Once you get to the end of a row, cut your plan to size, and begin the next row with the remaining piece of that plank to avoid excess waste and give the floor and more realistic "wooden" look.

This type of floor does not need to be nailed or glued (unless being used in a kitchen or bathroom, and then for water proofing purposes), and floats on the floor, with gaps on all sides to account for any expansion/warping.

At the end of the day, I spent approximately $700 in materials and about 9 hours of labor over the span of two nights to complete, but the results speak for themselves:

Work all the way down to the end of the room to complete

Finishing strips and thresholds complete the look and maintain the "floating" design of this type of floor

Laminate to Tile Installation Part 2

Finishing the Surface

After all of the surface prep work was completed, you have to prep the surface in accordance with the type of tile you are using. For vinyl tile, it is recommended to use lay a latex primer for better adhesion to the sub-floor. I went with this one from my local hardware store:

The latex primer can be applied full strength, or mixed depending on the condition (amount of cleaning done to floor) of the sub-floor. I used a 5 gal. container, a "roller tray" (that can be mounted to the edge of he paint bucket), and a 6 inch high density foam roller attached to a broom handle for comfort.

Putting down the latex primer

The set time for the primer is approximately 2 hours, before tile can be laid down.

Putting Down the Tile

Once your surface is ready, hopefully you have your tile and pattern chosen. I chose to go with a "Crushed Shell" tile color, and an offset pattern using 18" and 12" tiles. 

I wanted to give the floor the look of "real" tile by grouting between the tiles, so i go a bag of "X" tile spacers to set between the tiles to ensure consistent spacing. 

I quickly realized that my spacers were not well suited to my pattern, and I found myself turning the little X's into little T's in order to properly space the tiles.

What I should have gotten

                                                     
Once I laid a couple of tiles (with the backing still on) to verify the pattern and spacer fit, I went against standard convention of drawing lines and figuring out the center of the room, etc.... and just went and picked and edge and lay a tile down. My reasoning for this was my offset pattern would change and there really wasn't any advantage that I could see.

To lay the tile, just peel the backing back and place the tile down, and make sure that you use consistent even pressure to seal the tile. Vinyl tiles have a specially formulated adhesive that further activates when pressure is applied to it. You could use a rolling pin and bear your body weight, rent a tile roller, or use a roller that requires your body weight. I went with the latter option for about $20.

After about 30 minutes of sitting on the floor tiling and rolling, I torqued it over a bit, and found out it had an unadvertised extensible handle. This extension made it much comfortable to apply pressure using my heel, while standing up; instead of awkwardly trying to push down and roll it back and forth.


I tiled the centers of the room and left any tiles that would need to be cut for the end, but at this point, it was finally starting to look like a real floor:

After all of the middle tiles were down, It was time to start cutting the edges. After trying several methods of sizing/measuring tiles, ended up just using a square to measure the size the tile would need to be, making a pattern from cardboard and then tracing it on the tile using a china marker. Once the pattern was on the tile, a quick check to make sure it looks right and using a utility knife score the hard vinyl side against a straight edge. If scored correctly, the tile should break clean along the score line, and you just need to cut through the paper backing.

Once all of the edge tiles have been cut and placed, it is now time to prepare the floor for grouting.

Laminate to Tile Installation Part 1

One of the first things I did upon closing on the purchase of the house was walk in, find a joint seam for the existing (and hideous) blue and white linoleum, and started ripping away.

Existing Floor Removal

One thing I would recommend to anyone about to embark on a flooring project, is to invest in a good pair of cushioned knee pads.... trust me

You can see the first rip (above left) by hand into the linoleum. The first night, I decided the extents of the new floor and using a sharp utility knife, scored lines at the doorways where the linoleum would remain. I then removed the shoe molding, but left the baseboards to allow easier access to the edges of the vinyl.Without much prep, I started the process of cutting slits into the linoleum, and rubbing it with warm water to loosen the adhesive, then pulling it by hand. At about 6 AM, I called it quits and realized that I was probably doing it wrong.

The next morning and after some research, I went to my the hardware store and after asking the "knowledgeable" staff, they pointed me towards a scraper very similar to this:

After several hours of sitting on the floor scraping, it still didn't make sense that it would take as long as it was, so after a few calls to some friends and relatives, and  another trip to the hardware store, I then purchased a stand up floor model scraper 

This model finally yielded the results i was looking for, and allowed me to bear my body weight into it. The hand model became useful for removing anything left behind by the big one; however, it is not the option to start with.

Very warm water, a brush, and a clean cloth were essential in cleaning the adhesive residue, left behind by the scraper, off the sub-floor.

It is important to fill/sand any gouges that may have been cause during the removal of the old flooring so the new vinyl tile does not sink or protrude at those points.

The sub-floor should look like this once the vinyl and all adhesive has been removed