A friend of my wifes has asked me to lay some laminate flooring (Click type) for them in their hall. The hall was originally fitted with glue type laminate flooring, which they have now removed. The original installation was done with the flooring put under the (cut) architraves etc. Does anybody have any tips/experience as to how I can get the last run of flooring under any architratraves that are already cut. If it was glue type I would just cut to suit, slide under the architrave and 'pull back' into position, but with click type this would not be easy! Any tips or ideas most welcome.
If they are decorating the hall after the floor is fitted, then remove all the skirting boards and architraves before fitting the flooring. You still need the expansion gap around the edges though. Then replace the woodwork. It makes a fantastic finish to the flooring, and makes life a lot easier for the floor fitter. Remember too, to leave a small gap between the skirting and flooring to allow for expansion there as well.
If they have just decorated the hall, then you can use the technique of lifting the floor in the middle to slide it under the woodwork, but it's a hard job to do if you haven't tried it before, and needs the aid of one more person, usually, to make it happen.
So, my advice is tell them that you need to remove the skirting and architrave to make the job look beautiful, or your not doing it for them. :-)
im about to lay some flooring in my bathroom. I laid laminate in my old flat about 5 years ago and truth be told it was an ok job - apart from corners and cuttings whicj made it look pretty cheap.. So im wondering anybody any ideas on how best to cut round toilet, central heating pipes etc... Im using quality products and dont want to make a complete mess
When I did mine I took a piece of printer paper (A4) and cut it almost into strips, like a sort of comb. Then taped it to the floor by the pedestal so the cut strips were going up the side of the pedestal. Then for each strip, pushed it down against the base, and marked with a pencil. After all that, removed paper, with lots of little pencil marks revealing pretty good shape of base. Slight fun aligning paper / floor / laminate to make sure cut started in right place, but end result not bad - about 1-2mm gap all round, which filled with mastic OK. hth Neil
First rule: Laminate flooring 'is' cheap. You will always be trying to imitate something that is 'not so' cheap. Laminates vary in quality, according to type of installation (i.e. location at which they will be installed), and therefore durability/suitability of their performance at that local, and also how they compare, aesthetically, to the material they have been manufactured to look like.
In a bathroom, only those laminates that look like bathroom flooring should be chosen. An example are those that look like tiles. Anything else, unless stated otherwise, will typically not be suited to regular contact with water, as occurs within a bathroom. "Wet-room" laminates will have been designed/engineered to withstand constant soaking, and specifications for laying them will differ from laying conventional laminate.
Assuming you have the right product for the job, I would suggest the following...
Cutting round toilet: If possible, remove the toilet. Lay floor underneath. Cut round waste pipe. allow holes for toilet pan fixing screws and inlet feed pipe. Re-position toilet and draw outine of pan onto laminate. Remove pan and apply bead of silicone within outline of pan drawn on floor. Re-fix pan and screw down onto bead of silicone. Alternatively, slide sheet of paper under toilet base and draw outline of pan. Include a reference point on the paper that coincides with a fixed point on already laminated floor. This way you can assemble lengths of laminate on a bench, overlay your template (from the x=0, y=0 coordinates) and transfer the pan outline onto the dry-fixed laminate, cut accordingly, disassemble and refit in situ. If you can't get anything under the toilet, then you're going to have to use an adjacent wall as a datum and scribe/project the pan outline onto some paper/posterboard, using a profile gauge that can project the footprint of the pan onto the paper, which will marry up with the pan base, when the x,y coordinates are changed. This can be tricky, so practice with card until you get it right... I find that the projection of the outline is usually correct... it's the point of origin that causes problems.
Heating pipes: Use a similar procedure to "project" pipe positions. Drill suitable holes and cut down to them with a jigsaw. Keep the waste material and glue this piece back into the gap behind the pipe(s) then cover with purpose made pipe-rings that should be available as part of the laminate system... they look like flat doughnuts and match the flooring pattern/finish.
One tip is: don't use the expansion gap scotia/quadrant, that is sold to match the flooring. Instead, use softwood edging and paint/stain to match the skirting or flooring. The stuff that comes with the laminate is rubbish... it's made from a kind of pulp and disintegrates easily. It's also hard to fix without damaging and doesn't last. Far easier to buy scotia/quadrant in wood and decorate to suit.
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