I had to post this blog today to talk about how much goes into a job before we ever can actually do the job.  What I mean is to actually get down to the business of installing (in this case) the flooring.  This particular job is for a customer who has elected to put a laminate floor in the majority of their vacation home down here at Sea Colony in Bethany Beach, DE.  The flooring is by Wilsonart.  It is a plank floor, 5 inches wide, color: Zen Cherry.

Before we could actually install any of this beautiful selection we had to remove the existing carpet, padding, & tack strip.  Prior to that Josh and Beers had to remove all the furniture and find a place to put it that would be out of harm's way and not in the way of the actual installation.  Since the laminate is going in most of the rooms they had to carefully pack it in the kitchen.  Note in the picture to the left, Beers is finishing taping off the plastic that was put up to protect all the furniture and the kitchen itself from the dust that would be created from doing this job.  Dust is something that we are very conscious of and try our best to limit.  That being said, there is always a certain amount of dust that can not be helped due to sweeping the floors, cutting some of the door trims, and in this case cutting the steps down to receive their new coverings in the Zen Cherry.

Now that the furniture is tucked safely away and the plastic protection is up, Josh addresses a few of the concerns with the sub floor, prior to any flooring being installed. We had found upon measuring the job, that the upstairs bedrooms and study had an unusual amount of squeaks in the floor that could be heard through the carpeting.  This is a simple remedy consisting of screwing off the sub floor to the joists below, once the carpet is removed.  In this picture Josh is showing me an area that was particularly bad.  Note how many screws were placed in this area to "quiet it down".

Upon removing the carpet and padding Josh discovered some water staining on the sub floor.  All stains were found directly under windows.  We called the customer to alert her of the potential problem of not only installing the new laminate but to make sure that she knew that her windows were leaking!  To our relief she had addressed the problem with the Sea Colony Maintenance Department the prior summer.

Next we have the matter of the seams in the sub floor.  When this town-home was constructed it must have endured a lot of bad, rainy weather.  We can tell because the seams of the sub floor were particularly swollen or raised up.  To take care of this problem Josh uses an edging machine that sands down the trouble areas.  This picture to the left shows just a few seams that were addressed by Josh.  This is an important part of the job as we do not want any "peaking" in the sub floor to telescope through to our final finished floor.

Now, we have the matter of the steps.  Our homeowner wanted to cover the steps in the new flooring as to make a more fluent transition from the Living Room downstairs to the Study at the top of the steps.  To do this we had to remove the nosing from the front of the "rough" steps so the new finished stair nosing could be installed.  This process is rather lengthy.  This picture to the left shows Josh using a handsaw to cut the sides of the step.  Josh is taking extra care doing this job so as not to scratch the painted "skirt board" beside the steps.

In the next picture Josh inspects the first step after I ripped down the front edge of the nosing with his Dewalt cordless Jig Saw.  Josh continued on and finished the steps, now making them ready to receive the new "stair treads" from Wilsonart!

Next, Josh finds a very low spot in the corner of the Living Room.  Once again, to avoid problems during the installation, Josh is seen here filling this low spot with a fast drying floor compound called "Feather Finish" by Ardex.

While Josh has been busy addressing all of the pre-start issues, Beers has been stocking the job with the new laminate flooring.  In this picture Beers takes time out for a pose while Josh looks at the stacks of carefully placed flooring.  These bundles have been unpackaged and stacked to let the product "breathe" and acclimate to the indoor temperature and humidity level, prior to installing (per the manufacturers recommendation). To the right is the final outcome of Beer's hard work.  He is now all ready to go for Josh when they begin the upstairs bedrooms.

Next on the list is the cut station.  The cut station is where all the cutting of the laminate will take place.  Some guys may try and cut inside the house but laminate is made of a homosote type product and contains a very fine air-borne dust when cut. On this job, Josh and Beers were able to set up in the outside porch area to keep the dust outside of the house.  This was a good choice as it has a roof over it and they can use it, rain or shine.

Well, after all the preparation Josh was finally able to get started on actually laying some of the new floor.  This shot is in the upstairs bedroom.  Of special note is the picture below which shows Josh's first course is only 1-1/2" wide.  Josh did this after careful calibration of the room itself, in order to end at the bedroom doorway with a nice full or large piece where our customer will first enter the bedroom.