One Room Challenge - Week 4: The White Box Has Floors!
It’s hard to believe we’re four weeks in, if you’re just joining me in the One Room Challenge, be sure to check out the step-by-step plans and progress towards my guest bedroom makeover so far in weeks 1-3 on the blog.
We’re almost there with renovations, folks. The biggest tasks are always the ones I’ve never tried before, which with DIY is a lot of things. Installing our flooring was a bit of an unknown, so now that it’s installed, quarter round complete and the trim has been painted - we’re starting to get to the design elements of the renovations. But first, let’s celebrate new floors!
why lifeproof Luxury Vinyl Plank Floors
Okay, so when I started in on the renovations of this house the master plan did not include floors in short order. They are a budget suck, and I knew if we were going to pay for flooring we were sure as hell going to install it ourselves to save on cost.
The original plan was, which I attempted to execute in my home office, was painted concrete floors. We already have painted concrete in our main living areas, but the bedrooms were left carpeted. After an early pandemic run-in with fleas, we promptly ripped out every inch of carpet and have been living with a very in-between state of flooring.
My cheap “hack” of painting the concrete floors, with two-coats of porch paint as recommended by many internet folks quickly revealed itself as a losing battle. I cannot vacuum without scratching the floors which are all in pretty sad shape.
As a clean freak with two very hairy dogs, I love to vacuum and need cleaning floors to be low-maintenance. I spot tested with additional coats and still experienced scratching, so likely the original color of concrete paint needed to be stripped first. This forced us to reconsider all together if we really wanted a temporary solution or if we should bite the bullet and install new floors throughout the house as we renovate.
Thus, began our exploration into flooring options that provided:
Durability and low-maintenance: dogs, cleaning, high-traffic we want them to endure it all.
Affordability: not in original budgeted renovations planned over time, so inexpensive enough that we can replace room by room as we can afford it.
Easy enough to install ourselves
Added value to the house with resell appeal, but still within our design sensibilities
Another Instagram DIYer, Katie, from @diyweekends recently installed her own Home Depot Lifeproof Luxury Vinyl Plank flooring in a room of her house, some deep dive research and a few other trusted folks making the same recommendation I realized this hit all the parameters listed above.
What we chose: Lifeproof Luxurious Pine Wood Vinyl Plank Flooring, here are some of the main details:
100% waterproof; can be installed in most rooms of your home or business – Above, On or Below grade
Can be installed over most existing surfaces including tile, wood, concrete and vinyl
Easy to maintain, no-wax flooring - simply clean with a dust mop, vacuum or pH neutral cleaner
ScratchProtect surface coating is the ultimate in scratch and stain resistance
Pre-attached underlayment provides a floor that's warm, comfortable and quiet underfoot
Drop-and-lock installation system makes it fast and easy for both pros and DIYers to install
Ultra-fresh treatment inhibits the growth of odor and stain causing mold and mildew on the attached underlayment and top surface layer of the flooring
No acclimation required; buy today, install today
Innovative ISOCORE technology creates a more rigid product that hides subfloor imperfections
The pine variation we landed on is the higher price, coming in at $3.19 per square foot, making the whole room approximately $400 for materials. The only additional materials I purchased were:
Roberts Flooring Installation Kit - $32 - great to have for first time flooring installation, we needed spacers, tapping block, pull bar and mallet
Paintable laminate quarter round - $5 per 8 foot piece for trim
Craftsman Miter Saw and Saw Box - $15 for cutting more precise quarter round
The installation
before
after
I recruited my husband for a full day of learn as we go flooring installation. Especially for the first time I think it’s helpful to have two brains and bodies on the task. Here are the installation steps we took:
Before installation day carpet removal: pull carpet, fill carpet tack-holes with concrete patch
Prep and clean floors: sand any high spots from the concrete patch, shop-vac and mop the floors
Measure room and sort planks:
Measure the room to determine how much we would want to cut down the width of our first and last row so that we didn’t end on a weird plank sizes.
Sort the planks by design and create a rough plan for mixing the variation to look natural, it was best to open and mix multiple cases at a time for this.
Lay the first row:
Use quarter inch spacers along perimeter, this will leave space for eventual expansion. We decided that we would install with our current moulding and add quarter round instead of re-installing all trim.
Lay the first row and cut down the boards as necessary for width based on your room size, and your last plank on length. We used a table saw for this, however this flooring is created to score and snap. We wanted to ensure as clean of cuts as possible and some of the reviews noted having a hard time with score and snap method.
Lay your second row & tap it in:
Start your second row with the excess of your last board from the first row. The goal is to not line up boards on each row for a more natural look.
Place your tapping block on the outer edge of your second row and tap in with a mallet on a tapping block. Lifeproof is incredibly intuitive and locked together quickly, however the first row you tap in will be the hardest because you don’t have the benefit of any existing structure to tap into and can get a bit of shifting of the first row.
Rinse and repeat: pay attention to variation in plank alignment, plank pattern and working around corners. This process made me realize how handy a jig-saw would be in the future, we had to get a bit creative with scoring and cutting out edges for the door trim.
Install quarter round and caulk your trim
I can’t imagine flooring installation being easier than this flooring option, however we did get slowed down just with general learning curves. Once we laid the first row, the entire installation only ended up taking 4 hours between the two of us.
So far, I am really happy with the result. As much as I love real hardwoods, this option fits the bill for price, design and will likely hold-up with more ease for our lifestyle than wood floors. Up next, i’ll circle back to my office and install this flooring once my back stops reminding me i’m almost out of my 20s.
Sneak Peeks
I hit up Round Rock Antique Gallery for some styling supplies and peeped a glam tiki-inspired lighting option…
and this week will be full of adding color, pattern and texture to the space.
Watch out world, this week I start bringing my vision to life and being both experimental and a maximalist there’s always opportunity for more surprises.
