Office Floor in One Day!

Last night, I laid out the underlayment for the office floor. Today, I started and (even more satisfying) completed putting down the laminate wood floor!

Pictures to come soon. It was a joy to complete something like this in essentially one day. A friend from church came over to help (thanks Stephen), and it made the job go faster and smoother.

The planks were simple to link together side-by-side. The only detail that took some attention was having someone watch the joint between the end of two planks as the other person tapped the block to push them together. The trick is to tap them just enough to close the gap but not so much that the joint starts to buckle and protrude upward.

The one part of the job that I thought would be very tricky wasn't at all: laying the last row against the last wall. The instructions gave you a complicated procedure of planing off the tongue and groove to make it easier to slip in and filling the gap with wood glue. But when we got to that wall, the only thing different was cutting the plank lengthwise to fit in the space. Once you did that, you slipped it in and it locked in place the same as the others.

Ah, one tip I can offer: you always want to end a row on a straight wall. I have a bay window in the office, so there are two wall segments at a 45 degree angle. Without thinking ahead, I started at the back wall and worked my way forward. My last plank was cut at a slant to match the wall, and I couldn't easily use the pull bar to tap it into place. From that point, I always started a row at the front and moved back. This way every row ended with a flat-ended piece, and it was easy to use the pull bar.

After the months-long saga that was laying tile, this job was fun and exciting! Stephen wanted to come over so he could learn the ropes. He's about to lay more than one room with laminate wood in his house. We had a good time.