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New Pergo Floor; A DIY Odyssey Ever wanted to perk up a living room? Tired of the old dog- and kid-stained carpet? Want something to make a room look more grown up? Well, we did so we finally broke down and installed a wood floor in our living room. At least, it started out to be just our living room. Let me tell you about the joys and pains so that you, hopefully, can learn from my mistakes and findings. Pergo, in case you don't know, is a wood flooring product developed somewhere other than here, manufactured in different places including here and Canada, and comes in both a variety of wood surfaces (oak, birch, pine, etc) but a variety of installation styles. It has a coating on the top that is suppose to resist stains, sun bleaching and basic wear and tear for 10-30 years (depending on the type you buy).
We picked it up at Home Depot where they sell some of the styles and woods that you can't get anywhere else (and since it was on sale that week, we saved about 40% from their normal price which is 10-15% less that "flooring specialty" stores would charge. Anyway, the basic directions call for you to start in one corner and work your way to the far, diagonal corner. But that comes way down the line. Here is what you need to do first: 1-clear out the room So, what did Mr. Genius do? Well for starters I thought that we would leave the carpet in the dining room which sort of "Ls" off of the living room (see below). That meant cutting a straight line (Ha!) from one wall to the other through both the carpet and the pad. Next, I decided that moving everything out of the room would be more bother than it is worth, so we moved everything down to one end of the room. Then I cut the carpet into six pieces, each about 8' x 10', pulled up just the first one, and started to lay down the foam underpad. That was when I discovered that the old subfloor wasn't exactly level and that there were actually areas where water and time had caused the 1-inch plywood to pucker up. So, I had to chip out the top one or two layers of ply in those areas (usually about 10-20 square inches each) and the level out that area with floor filler. The same for the massive amount of knots that dotted the surface of the subfloor. So, I took up two more section so I had an 8-foot by about 30-foot area to work in (and by work I mean lots more cutting, chipping, filling and other subfloor work. Several nights of 2-3 hours per night).
Even the first piece of the second row went it great. You cut a full-length piece to about 2/3 length (so all the narrow seams don't line up both for visual effect as well as overall joint strength) Just tilt it up lengthwise, fit it into the first plank I put down along the long side, and tilt-snap it into place. Then the fun begins. Because the next full-length piece must be tilted and snapped in both lengthwise as well as along the narrow end. At the same time. Without bending the piece or breaking off the side tabs that interconnect. Here is what I found out about that process. The Pergo directions are not very good! Not wrong... just not good or complete. The secret is to take the cut-off end from that 1st second row piece, cut it into pieces and create a hammer block, something that fits into the connections on one side but is flat on the opposite so the hammer can make good connection. Then, all you do is weigh down the first 20% of the first pieces (1st and 2nd rows) with a full box of the Pergo, put a small block under the outer edge of the second piece so it is lifted about 3/4-inch, tilt the 2nd second row piece up and slide in the narrow ends at about a 30% angle, ease it down lengthwise until the long side lines up with the first row pieces, and then use the hammer block to "persuade" in into place. Then remove the lift block fromthe corner of the first piece and ease everything down flat. Repeat until the floor is complete. Sounds harder than it really is. The hard thing is the floor preparation. If I had been smart I would have done three things differently: 1) I would have taken up all the carpet and pad and done all of the subfloor fixes at one time, not in stages 2) As part of #1 I would have cleared the room so that I didn't have to keep moving things around, and 3) I would have decided — with Patty's assistance — to do the dining room as well before starting the project and not half way through. If you take out the time spent moving things, taking up the carpet and doing all the floor patching, the actual living room (16-feet by 30-feet) then the floor went down in about 4 hours. All except the last, long row. Because my method called for being alb eo use the hammer block along the outer edge, and the last row just about touches the wall, I couldn' tuse that method to put in the last full row. Here is what I did and it worked great! I assembled the full row next to where it was going to be, used heavy-duty packing tape to hold all of the pieces together, and then put a piece of tape on the underside of each piece so that it extended about 6 inches on what would be the wall side. Then I moved it over the hole and used the tape straps to tilt it up and pull in toward me into position. In less than 2 minutes I had the entire 30 feel in, tilted down and snapped into place. Hurray! The only real tricky part was cutting parts of pieces from two rows out to fit in the new floor heater vent covers (matching wood ones (not from Pergo, but the look perfect). And that was just a matter of measuring 3 times so that I only had to cut once -- and yes, I did screw up one entire piece by cutting it on the wrong side, thanks for bringing that up! But, it was finally finished. And then we decided to add the dining room. And that meant learning how to attach pieces backward from all the ones I had installed. I won't go into that part, but it took an additional 2 evenings of subfloor patching and 5 hours of floor laying to get the additional 10-foot by 10-foot dining room complete. Was It Worth It? Yes. The floor looks great. Only I can see the imperfections. And the baseboards you can get to match the flooring cover a myriad of mis-cut ends. By the way... the wallboards required another 3 evenings to install because I wanted to do them without nails and had to wait for the panel adhesive I used to set before I could do accurate angle cuts in most corners and around the doorway into the kitchen. The room looks about 200% better than before. We bought an area rug to cover some of the living room floor and to soften up the look of the room. It looks like a real living room; grown up without being to showy or snobish. Would I do it again. Absolutely. But, I'd do it the smart way, not the THud way! If I had to do it all over again, I would only need about 12 hours instead of the 30+ it eventually took me. |
We
bought Birch Planked for our room. It comes from their Pergo Presto
line which required NO GLUE! It snaps together. Hurray! Well.........
Finally,
I had half the living room ready. I rolled out the underpad and
began laying down the first pieces. Keep in kind that these are
about 7.5-inches wide by 48-inches long with tilt-and-snap connections
along all 4 sides. The first run from one end of the room to the
other went smootly since you just tilt the end of the next piece
up, slide the two together, and press the next piece down into
position. Snap! and the two are almost seamlessly joined.