DIY Hardwood Floor Installation

Installing flooring yourself is a great way to save money on a home repair project. You can use this easy method if you just want to change the look of your floor. You need to remove the carpet from your sitting room to discover several small holes in the hardwood floor. If you do not have the money to afford professional help to restore your property, look for a do-it-yourself solution.

Find a flooring system that is very easy to install, no nailing, no gluing. It is comprised of thin wooden planks, three to four feet long, three to five inches wide, with a tongue-and-groove system to fit together. Your main effort will be tapping the planks together, and cutting the final row of planks to fit the room. The flooring comes with a grooved block to help tap the pieces together without damaging the tongue.

You can visit your local hardware shop to look at the different wood patterns, or go onto the internet to find the style you like and have it delivered to you. There are two main types of hardwood floors, engineered wood planks and laminate flooring. Wherever you go, always ask for maintenance tips. Floors need cleaning and you need to know what the best cleaners for the job are. Alternatively, you can think about the steam cleaning option as it goes with most floors and always leaves great results behind. But leave that for the end, you still have a lot of hard work to do.

Engineered wood planks are laminated, but each section is made out of wood. The average price for this style of flooring is £4 per square foot. Laminate flooring uses a plastic top section, molded and colored for a wide variety of woods. They require some more specific care and cleaning them would be slightly more difficult, but nothing you cannot handle. The plastic laminate stands up to wear and tear better than the real engineered wood planks and costs just a little less, around £3.5 a square foot. The plastic laminate will not have the feel and the sound of walking across real wood.

With a bit of research on your part, and some installation time, you can have a new and beautiful floor. Take some of that money you saved and go buy something nice to put on that floor. Next comes home cleaning so that you can enjoy the full aesthetic results of your hard work. Do that yourself as well, or get a cleaning company to do it for you – but either way, a good steam cleaner will do wonders for you brand new floor. Good luck!

Heather Roberts is a freelance guest blogger from London, UK. She has got many published articles on various topics such as cleaning, organizing, home and garden etc.