Flooring Project

[AUDub]

Been a fun couple of days. My wife and I took advantage of the extended weekend and finally got started on a much needed home improvement project. Carpet in out girls' rooms upstairs is original and badly in need of replacement. Roughly 30 years old. We purchased about 900ft² of tongue and groove vinyl plank and decided to give it a go ourselves. Got Ava's room done and it was the worst.

Up comes the carpet.

We made a fun family project out of it. Sadie followed behind me as I pull the carpet and tac board, pulling up staples I missed or hammering them level as needed. Catherine operated the shop vac. Ava painted trim. 

Cecilia got to contribute by looking stinking cute.

Didn't much care for the power tools though.

By evening it was just me and Sadie. Child can practically do the job herself. I'm impressed.

This is as far as we got that evening.

But we managed to wrap up the room before the day was out. End result:

One room down, one more and the landing to go.

Tools were a cheap jig saw for cornering and rip cuts, an oscillating multi tool for adjusting trim height in spots, a flooring shear for the planks, utility knife, kit for flooring that included a block and pull bar, various pliers, mallets, hammers, small trim pry bar for the tackboards, full on crow bar at one point, shop vac and s*** tons of elbow grease. 

The kit came with spacers for flooring expansion but the wedge ones didn't work so well, so we returned to home depot for ¼ block spacers. 

Materials were underlayment, duct tape, 400ish feet of vinyl planks. I'm going to throw down quarter-round shortly.

Edited December 29, 2020 by AUDub

[Tiger Refuge]

10 hours ago, AUDub said:

Been a fun couple of days. My wife and I took advantage of the extended weekend and finally got started on a much needed home improvement project. Carpet in out girls' rooms upstairs is original and badly in need of replacement. Roughly 30 years old. We purchased about 900ft² of tongue and groove vinyl plank and decided to give it a go ourselves. Got Ava's room done and it was the worst.

Up comes the carpet.

We made a fun family project out of it. Sadie followed behind me as I pull the carpet and tac board, pulling up staples I missed or hammering them level as needed. Catherine operated the shop vac. Ava painted trim. 

Cecilia got to contribute by looking stinking cute.

Didn't much care for the power tools though.

By evening it was just me and Sadie. Child can practically do the job herself. I'm impressed.

This is as far as we got that evening.

But we managed to wrap up the room before the day was out. End result:

One room down, one more and the landing to go.

Tools were a cheap jig saw for cornering and rip cuts, an oscillating multi tool for adjusting trim height in spots, a flooring shear for the planks, utility knife, kit for flooring that included a block and pull bar, various pliers, mallets, hammers, small trim pry bar for the tackboards, full on crow bar at one point, shop vac and s*** tons of elbow grease. 

The kit came with spacers for flooring expansion but the wedge ones didn't work so well, so we returned to home depot for ¼ block spacers. 

Materials were underlayment, duct tape, 400ish feet of vinyl planks. I'm going to throw down quarter-round shortly.

Dude. Your girls have gotten so freaking big! I know, I know...but dang!

 

Great work man! And awesome job getting the fam involved. A little self motivation/elbow grease can go a long way in life. Great lesson for kids to learn. And more than money saved, the satisfaction of a job well done is priceless.

[Grumps]

Awesome job, Dub! Thanks for sharing! You have a beautiful family! How do you like the oscillating multi-tool? I have wondered about them.

[AUDub]

11 hours ago, Grumps said:

Awesome job, Dub! Thanks for sharing! You have a beautiful family! How do you like the oscillating multi-tool? I have wondered about them.

It's probably the most versatile tool I have besides my Dremel, but it's sort of a "jack of all trades, master of none" if that makes sense. I've used it to sand, cut drywall and concrete backer board. It works but other tools do usually do the job better, especially the bigger the job gets.

In love with the thing now though. Saved a lot of time compared to any other tool I could have used. All of the door frames had to come up a bit in order to get the flooring flush underneath them. Just get a piece of scrap flooring as a template, put the blade atop it and went to town. 

In hindsight, I sort of wish I had simply pulled the baseboards, worked with the spacers against the wall and simply reinstalled dropping them down to the flooring. More painting, but it would look a bit cleaner than the quarter round.

[AUDub]

Well finally had to splurge on a table saw today. Ran into a complication in Sadie's room and the jig is simply not accurate enough to make the proper rip cuts.

Besides a router, that about completes my woodworking tool set, and I have a Dremel that can tide me over until I need something bigger. 

[AUDub]

All done but the quarter round.