Luxury Vinyl

I have recently updated my flooring.  We bought a new home and had to remove all the old carpeting.  A daunting task, but well worth the pay-off.  What I chose to install was called Sunset Acacia, by Lamett - Bayport Series.  Nearly $4/sf.

It was a gamble picking such a dark color but with the amount of light filtering in through all our windows and the creme colored walls, I think it will flow beautifully.

Grosse floors for a few days while staples are pulled, dips are patched and attempts to level out high and low areas.  I found that vinyl is unforgiving.  If you do not try to level one subfloor seam to the next, the vinyl will reflect this.  I found this in the first room I did.  You live and learn I guess.

Each wall in the room had a different paint color to boot.  Oh, the joys of home renovation.  Many staples later...

All walls now match!

And so it begins...the first of many weekends of locking planks together.

They say you can use a utility knife for this flooring.  Ha!  It takes some time to cut and score each piece.  So not worth it!  My mitre saw is worth it's weight in gold for this install.  However, it shreds the vinyl and makes a huge pile of debris after each cut.

Finished flooring!  It turned out as good as I had hoped.  However, it's not as scratch resistant as it boasts.  Sliding large furniture scratches fast!  Invest in felt protectors!

So  I move onto the next bedroom ;)

More staple removing, nail pounding and sanding.  In this room I had to put leveling compound down.

Constant vacuuming and eyeballing raised spots.  

New furniture to boot :)  It all looks really great together.

Now for the living room.......

So the upstairs flooring is done!  Stay tuned for downstairs :)

Flooring-removal of carpet and padding

We recently purchased a new home that was in dire need of floor updates.  Our home is wall to wall carpet, fully broken in by the previous owner's dogs....if you catch my drift. Yuck!  So, up must come all the old carpet.

Check out the stairs....just a small sample of "the lived in look" of creme colored carpet.  Those light spots are not the light hitting it but the cleaner portion untouched by dogs and people.

This picture doesn't quite show all the dirt and how worn it looks, but I assure you it was do for a proper burial.

Here are the stairs, soon after was a labor intensive removal.  By labor intensive, I am referring to the 40 + yrs of staples I had to pry up and attempt to pull.  About 80 per step.  Good times and sore fingers.  First you have to get under the staple and then try to ply up.  I used a small flat head screwdriver to get under it and then needle nose pliers to pull out.

Here are a few more pics of carpet removal from around the house.