This laminate flooring installation in Middletown was a great home improvement upgrade for this older colonial. The client wanted two rooms done in a similar wood to match another room on the first floor. They opted not to remove the existing trim, so installation included some trim carpentry to finish the floors with a quarter round moulding.

Most DIY stores will sell you on the fact that this type of plank flooring is so easy to install anyone can do it. The reality is that there are many step and tricks that any skilled carpenter for custom projects like this would  know about. Lots of things that aren’t included in the instructions… if you know what I mean! In all seriousness, things like undercutting the door casings for a seamless look, or installing transitions for the polished look are truly only for skilled finish carpenters. Also properly staggering your seams, and doing some math before the first board is laid ensures a smooth installation. You don’t want to end up with tiny little slivers of a board up against a wall or in a high traffic area like a transition.

In this section you can see the how the project moved through the different stages of construction. With each major phase or ” STEP” I like to include a gallery, as well as some description of the processes and challenges in that particular part of project.

The first step is pretty much always the same, demolish and remove the materials that are going to be upgraded. In this case it was the carpet and padding in these two rooms. The client had already removed both and pulled out all the staples to make our job easier!

Then the underlayment goes down, and gets taped to keep it as flat as possible. Because of  the time the client saved us we were able to save the client a bunch of money on the price of laminate flooring installed. Remember you can always request a quote for the price of a new floor from Handsome Handyman Services with our awesome Contact Us feature.

Once the underlayment was down and the furniture was out of the way it was off to the races! Again, laying boards goes fairly quickly until you get to a wall or a doorway, or some other obstruction that you must fit your cuts around. In this case the layout was pretty straight forward, with only the fireplace and the gas key presenting any real challenge. After the last board is laid, its time to for the trim. The fireplace required a little extra dressing up, with new skirts glued to the brick to give us something to shoot the quarter round into. But after the trim the last detail are the two transition strips, which both required a little subfloor build up to get the height of the floors right.

If you are considering hiring a carpenter in middletown ct to install your next flooring project, we hope you will consider Handsome Handyman Services.