Pattern Laying Laminate Flooring

As with all flooring installing a laminate floor can set the overall tone for a room.

Pattern laying laminate flooring. Most diy ers make this mistake. To lay laminate flooring first clear out any furniture in the room you ll be laying the floor in. Also everything they have heard about how to install laminate sounded easy. They are excited to get going and want to see progress right now.

Laying a laminate floor in a regular pattern decreases its ability to contract and expand as a whole unit and instead does so as single laminate boards often causing gaps or even lifting like a hinge. There are a few things that you will need to do before you just jump right into laying the laminate floor. Notice how every second row of boards are uniform or regularly placed. Lighter colors create a light and airy feeling in a room.

A random pattern can be hard to achieve when all the planks are the same length but you can do it using offcuts from previous rows to start new rows. I mean this stuff is the easiest flooring on gods green earth. Flooring manufacturers always recommend putting down underlayment before laying the laminate. Before choosing a specific pattern consider what overall statement you are trying to create in the room.

Sub floors are typically concrete or cement and develop weaknesses over time. Next cut strips of underlayment to size and lay the strips down across the exposed floor. If you place laminate flooring on a weak or uneven sub floor the new floor will be compromised and eventually buckle damage the laminate locking system creak or create micro gaps in the new floor. Laminate comes in patterns that include stone tile and wood.

A laminate flooring stagger pattern is ideally random with spacing between end joints between 6 and 10 inches depending on the plank width. Larger rooms can sustain a larger more sprawling herringbone pattern while smaller rooms look better with a smaller more compact pattern. When installing a floating laminate floor you don t need to use any adhesive nails or staples. Slide the first two rows into their final position and repeat steps 5 and 6 above using the same alternating plank technique to complete the process.

Install the underlayment or vapor barrier. This thin dense foam layer helps to absorb sound provides a thermal barrier makes it easier to walk on the laminate and helps the flooring bridge minor gaps and bumps in the underlying floor.