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This weekend’s project - low key weekend in the middle of two all timers, the room has French doors to the garden, so not a total waste of the weather!
Room is a 3x4m box, no funny bits beyond two radiator pipes, fibreboard already down and in decent condition. An estimate from a flooring company was laughable so I’m doing it - how hard can it be, right?
Got 5mm gold underlay, good quality laminate (king size boards), a jigsaw. Going to use beading up to the skirting once the floor is down. Picked up the boards the other week and they’ve been sitting acclimatising in the room.
Never done laminate before but figured loads of you will have, so hit me up with the knowledge!
No real advice as I've never done it, but one thing sprang to mind as I was looking at it the other day..... try to make a random looking pattern (even if its not really random) othewise it will look daft:
Use a Cork strip around the edging to allow for expansion
Letting it acclimatise to the room it's going in is recommended.
Wedges for round the edges or the whole lot moves around, and, one of those metal bar things that lodge on to the edge of the piece that you’re fitting and enable the use of a hammer to click them together OR one of the plastic blocks you can tap. Don’t tap too hard as you can create little visible ridges.
As Matty says, random pattern, but not putting joints closer than say 1/4 of a plank. What you cut off the end of row 1 is your row 2 start piece, unless too small or would be too even a pattern.
Drill through at 25mm for radiator pipes (to allow movement), but cut from hole to board edge at about 30degrees, i.e a triangle wedge which can be glued back in and the saw cuts close up and disappear.
Wedges for round the edges or the whole lot moves around, and, one of those metal bar things that lodge on to the edge of the piece that you’re fitting and enable the use of a hammer to click them together OR one of the plastic blocks you can tap. Don’t tap too hard as you can create little visible ridges.
All great advice
Get the first strip as level as possible. An extra 30 min/ hour on the first strip or two pays dividends when the last strip fits together neatly
Last one I did I bought a fancy black laminator saw from Wickes. It was substantially easier than the same saw with a non fancy black blade
Last room has a chimney breast at 45 degrees across about a third of the room and a bay at the other end, so there were a lot of non 90 degree cuts
I'd still buy the fancy saw with a square room. The blade didn't catch on the laminate any where near as much. It was blunt by the end of the room. No idea if a fancier saw would stay sharper longer. I don't do that many so
My basic work bench is super helpful on a laminate floor
The first room I did, I used beading round the edge. Every one since that, I've taken the skirting off and refixed it over the laminate. It's worth the effort.
The laminate is very abrasive on saws, get a hardpoint one and expect to write it off.