Laminate flooring repair (well not repair, more like finish...)

[Robert]

We bought our house 6 months ago and it has laminate flooring in one room. It seems ok except.... it does not reach to the edge of the room and stops short of the skirting boards. I can cover most of this with a bit of beading. However down one edge it it as much an an inch or more from the skirting and looks dreadful. Is there anything I can fill the big gap with (I have heard car bodyfiller mentioned)? I can then paint it approx the same colour as the laminate, add some edging and maybe it will not look that bad...

[gg1000]

I would have thought you could get a little more laminate to fill the gap - even if it is not an exact match it has to look better than filler. Also laminate floors move as they expand and contract (which is why you leave a gap of about quarter to half an inch around it) so I would have thought that filler would not work!

[Mike Dodd]

Sounds like a hell of a bodge job. How big is the room?, would it be feasible to replace the whole floor? (this might be easier than bodging a repair)

Failing that, have a look around and see if you can find a source for the same laminate and buy a pack, cut enough into a strip (the rest of each plank will have to be thrown) and fit this in place (being only 1 inch up against the wall you don't need to worry about strength so much

- so possible sand down the tongue to make this easier to fit, and glue it in place.

[ben]

Erm! an item of furniture placed over it.

You havn't really said where it is? i.e does it run parralel with wall is it running along the window wall? can you hammer the other side to at least give you less gap for 1" beading?

[John Cartmell]

There is a flexible filler for exactly that included in the ScrewFix catalogue.

[Dazkb]

as gg1000 said there is suppose to be a gap there which is covered wit

quadrant the same wood as the floor or skirt> Robert wrote:-

-- Dazkb

[Owain]

I would suggest cork. It's compressible to accommodate expansion of the laminate, and as it's a sort of wood should take woodstains to colour.

Owain

[chris French]

In message , Dazkb writes

Yes, but not an inch as the OP said, which is to big to be covered with the beading.

[chris French]

In message , Robert writes

As some one else said, you can get coloured flexible fillers - catalogues or flooring places.

However I don't think that would look to good either.

I think I would try a strip of flat wood - or something with just a rounded end (what's that called?) - maybe fixed with blobs of selant or something in the gap?

[Séan Connolly]

Seconded, this was how the laminate around the architraving was done in my old house (not by me), and it looked fine. They'd also done the same around the bottom of the stairs.

[Robert]

Thanks for all your replies.

It *looks* like they got to the end of the job and ran out of laminate and bodged some of it with an off cut. An inch gap is being charitable actually :( It varies down the wall from aout .5inches to 2 inches with a bit spliced in at an angle. The rest of the room actually looks quite good which is why I am not keen on redoing the whole room. I suspect it has been down quite a few years, 5+ maybe and is in good condition apart from the laughable edge.

I suspect we will cover the area with furniture of some kind but would like to at least make it look respectable first. I quite like the idea of cork or some other laminate down the edge and I'll look in B&Q to see if they have something similar.

I can try and take a picture if it would amuse?

[zymurgy]

I have the same issue, but the bottom of my stairs are rounded. Ok, I can cut boards to fit round, but how do I bend the beading strip into a tight radius ? I don't think it's possible. What have other people done in curved areas where laminate/wood butts up with an expansion gap ?

Thanks

Paul.

[Séan Connolly]

In this case the bottom of the stairs were curved and they'd used cork to go around the edge of the laminate.

To be honest you could hardly see see it because of the carpet on the stairs anyway.