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Thread: Durable and cheap flooring advice

  1. #31
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
    Posts
    5,426
    If you do a snap lock type floor like the Home Depot Lifeproof flooring be sure to use the little kicker or whatever you call it to close up the gaps. I did not do that in my basement bathroom and it sure looks like a bad DIY job. I need to pull the toilet and redo the flooring. It is less than 30 square feet. I will reuse the pieces, but I have extra if need be. I was in a huge hurry to finish the bathroom for a real estate appraisal so I left it the with the gaps. (No appraiser would include the basement bathroom in my house value because it was trashed and unusable. The toilet flushed, but I would have gone outside before using it as it was NASTY.)

  2. #32
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,675
    I agree with you Brian. The first few pieces I assembled in what was my office at the old property just didn't look right to me and I figured out what I needed to do to properly close and tighten up the joints. Fortunately, I figured that out sooner rather than later! The stuff was being ornery with me....
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  3. #33
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    Piercefield, NY
    Posts
    1,657
    I've been wondering if I should practice with a couple of pieces to make sure I am doing it right, or if it would be smarter not to do that as I may mess up the edges if I assemble and disassemble them extra times. I imagine that they should fit tightly together, but is there more to knowing if they fit than that?

  4. #34
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    Just take your time. It's not That hard. If you don't hit the tapper quite hard enough, it won't go together, but it won't hurt anything, and will still go together with enough persuasion. You can damage an edge if you hit it too hard. It shouldn't take you long to get the feel though. They can be put together, and disassembled multiple times with no damage. They come back apart MUCH easier than they go together.

    I put almost half of ours down backwards, which is significantly more fiddly than the intended way, but it still wasn't extremely hard.

    I had two curved walls to fit, two 45 degree angles to fit to a slate floor, and fit around three sides of a stone chimney. Also, the bathrooms were tiled with a mortar bed on top of the concrete slab, so I had to taper the floor up to those, and also to that slate floor, to do away with any thresholds in doorways. Not only do I dislike thresholds, but we're making it handicap accessible, so I wanted wheels to roll smoothly everywhere. Instructions say not to glue it down, but I asked construction adhesive for some help at those transition slopes. That's why those toolboxes are sitting there on it.

    Imagine if I had tried to find someone to do those things to suit me. That's why I don't even bother to get anyone else to do anything. We're out in the sparsely populated country, so I imagine finding subcontractors would be worse than almost anywhere else. That's what I've done for living-just go ahead and do it myself.

    For the sides where I could slide the floor under the casing, I cut the casing with a wood spacer, and a Made in England Japanese pull saw. The other side of the wall, the casing was scribed, and hinged down, and finished with colored caulking-good enough for a rental house.
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    Last edited by Tom M King; 01-20-2022 at 11:34 AM.

  5. #35
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    Piercefield, NY
    Posts
    1,657
    That must have been a very complex job to do all of that, and especially the curved walls. I can relate to the subcontractor situation. My view for the last 20 years has been that I might as well mess a job up myself as pay someone else to mess it up for me. At least I know what I did, and can learn something from my mistakes. I'm hiring someone to install a septic system and to put in a 200 amp panel and service, and am planning to do the rest myself, as best I can.

  6. #36
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    It's not something that I worry about. I've been doing this kind of thing for a living for 47 years now. I just decide how I want something to end up, and then figure out how to do it. It's all the same to me.

    I don't have many pictures of that floor job, but did find one more. This is the other side of that chimney, where it intersects the slate in the entry, and the other curved wall. It's perfectly flush with the top of that slate. I just used the prefinished synthetic shoe molding around that curve, after this to finish up.

    You can see the Vaughn mallet in the picture. This was shortly before I threw away the tool I told you not to buy.

    Since I had come down the hall you saw in another picture, and around the front of that fireplace, all of the flooring in this picture was put down backwards from the normal way. The majority of it was put down normally, but two bedrooms, the curved walls, the laundry room, and the kitchen were all done backwards.
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    Last edited by Tom M King; 01-20-2022 at 2:56 PM.

  7. #37
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    I did the cutting to fit that chimney with a couple of coping saws, and a couple of jewelers saws out on the front porch floor, hanging off the steps to keep the mess out of the house. This picture is doing some crown molding there, but this was just a few steps out the front of the room where that chimney is. It cuts very easily. We've owned that point a lot longer than we have this house. It's really a separate piece of property, but this is on an adjoining lot.
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  8. #38
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    Piercefield, NY
    Posts
    1,657
    That is a very beautiful view you have there. I won't have nearly that much to install backward, so I'm thankful for that, and no curves or stonework so it should be easier.

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