I Love My New Floor!

So I ordered the new vinyl floor back in April at the local store's semi-annual sale. I can't really say I got a great deal, but there would be a lot of material and labor so I don't think I over paid by much. I said there was no rush as we had to rip up the carpet ourselves as well as baseboard molding, of which there was very little, and loose pieces of vinyl. Then we waited. And waited. I had originally been told the first week or so of May.

In mid June I finally called and was informed the installer had injured his knee.Okay, no biggie, he was supposed to be very good so we waited some more. The last week of June I got the call he would be out the  Tuesday before July 4th (a Thursday this year) and work around the holiday. Good thing we don't go places too often.

the old hallway

Ed and his helper who Hal thought was his wife (she didn't talk much as she really only spoke Spanish, I got to practice what little I remembered from high school, I think she was pleased I tried) arrived about 10:10 am on the 2nd in a van with all the luan which had to be put down as an underlayment to cover the imperfections in the floor including the glue ridges left from a carpet that was glued to the floor instead of installed with carpet tacks! The luan was stapled down about every 6 inches and the edges were ground down to create a shallow channel and filled with a white filler material and made smooth.

luan to the left old vinyl to the right

Before Ed got started we showed him some water damage to the sub floor in one corner that caused the sub-floor to swell and buckle a bit. He couldn't guarantee that that part wouldn't have problems in the future but since we weren't paying to have that issue fixed (the leak was fixed and the floor was dry), he did his best to make it work by putting in long nails to reach into the sub-sub-floor instead of relying just on staples.

the extra nailed corner

Ed said he had 45 years in the business and he was good. Before he lay down the vinyl, which he had to pre-cut at the store it was such a large roll and too heavy to move by even 3 people, he made sure there was nothing, no small scrap, a poked up staple that was in the way of a perfectly flat surface. He was also very careful in matching up the pattern, in fact the 4 of us sat down for half an hour and made sure the pattern matched perfectly.

the bad corner, aka the dining room

So we were really pleased with Ed's first 2 days of work, but when he returned on Friday to complete the hallway I was blown away by his work in the hallway. First, I never expected him to also cover the risers with vinyl and then I saw how meticulous he was in matching up the grout lines. The lines flow perfectly even in the angled section.

the grout lines all line up

 One last touch was his meticulous care in cutting the corner strips. The odd angle on the top stair in the above photo meshes beautifully.

the finished hall

So we may have waited a long time but it was worth the wait. Now Hal is slowly installing the baseboard molding in the main room. He's done 2 walls only (he finally caught that head cold, so is taking a break) so all the furniture is still scattered, plus we've decided to re-arrange the rooms again. Hopefully, I'll have final photos in a month or two.

Incidentally, the floor is by Congoleum and is called Midnight Terrace. :-)