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- 29 Dec 2023
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I've been doing up a back bedroom and while it's only a small room, after a few weekends of effort I've still not got half way across the floor. I have a family member who could really do with using that room but can't because this is taking so much longer than expected. No one chooses flooring based on the connection system it uses, but I will be next time.
Here's how it goes...
When lining the short ends of planks up to form a row, you need to insert them at a 30-40 degree angle to avoid a gap and you have to balance the weight of a plank while very carefully aligning the edges to avoid a gap with the previous row when you fit it. If you're slightly off you may be able to fix it with a couple of whacks of a pull bar, otherwise you're relaying it. Hope the plastic spacers don't fall down when you lift up the plank.
Forget the video tutorials you watched online that show it being laid nice and easy, when you join the new row to the previous one it'll often stick up at an angle instead of laying nice and flat. You then walk along it trying to flatten it out, hoping that it doesn't cause a rocking motion which separates the previous row from the one before that (which it usually does). Now you have to relay 2 rows.
Lay a row, find that the plastic spacers at the end have fallen down (again) and are now under the plank. Take up the row, throw the spacers out the way, relay the plank, put the spacers back. Hope that the end of the plank hasn't scuffed up the paint on the freshly painted skirting board again. This never happens in those video tutorials either.
Start at one area (doesn't matter if you start in the middle or an end), connect that to the previous row, work you way along the length of it. Find that the other end has now come apart. Go and fix that, hope that the other end doesn't play up.
After much time and effort, you get everything looking good, come back a few hours later and find rows have begun to separate at random points and you need to relay the whole thing (again).
Rewatch some of the tutorials, feel dumb when they mention there's a guide to how to lay it on the back of the label in every pack. Check yours, find that it has nothing on the back.
Your options are: try and persist with it, get someone in to lay it for you, which will cost hundreds, chuck it all out and get an entirely new set of laminate which will hopefully fit together a bit better, which will also cost hundreds and you may not be able to find the same look you had originally.
Here's how it goes...
When lining the short ends of planks up to form a row, you need to insert them at a 30-40 degree angle to avoid a gap and you have to balance the weight of a plank while very carefully aligning the edges to avoid a gap with the previous row when you fit it. If you're slightly off you may be able to fix it with a couple of whacks of a pull bar, otherwise you're relaying it. Hope the plastic spacers don't fall down when you lift up the plank.
Forget the video tutorials you watched online that show it being laid nice and easy, when you join the new row to the previous one it'll often stick up at an angle instead of laying nice and flat. You then walk along it trying to flatten it out, hoping that it doesn't cause a rocking motion which separates the previous row from the one before that (which it usually does). Now you have to relay 2 rows.
Lay a row, find that the plastic spacers at the end have fallen down (again) and are now under the plank. Take up the row, throw the spacers out the way, relay the plank, put the spacers back. Hope that the end of the plank hasn't scuffed up the paint on the freshly painted skirting board again. This never happens in those video tutorials either.
Start at one area (doesn't matter if you start in the middle or an end), connect that to the previous row, work you way along the length of it. Find that the other end has now come apart. Go and fix that, hope that the other end doesn't play up.
After much time and effort, you get everything looking good, come back a few hours later and find rows have begun to separate at random points and you need to relay the whole thing (again).
Rewatch some of the tutorials, feel dumb when they mention there's a guide to how to lay it on the back of the label in every pack. Check yours, find that it has nothing on the back.
Your options are: try and persist with it, get someone in to lay it for you, which will cost hundreds, chuck it all out and get an entirely new set of laminate which will hopefully fit together a bit better, which will also cost hundreds and you may not be able to find the same look you had originally.
