One of the important factors in planning the layout of your laminate flooring in your home is, how the finished product will look.

Things like window lighting and room size and shape determine which direction your flooring will be going to lay.

Hardwood Laminate Flooring Appearance
When possible, position the laminate flooring so that it runs perpendicular to sunlight coming in through the windows. This will maximize the reflection and give it that wonderful 'mirrored' look. Of course, you cannot make that this is the only factor you have to consider. The general look of the room you are renovating will determine how it should go as well.

Take this our project for example. When installing flooring over a plank sub floor, you have to run the laminate perpendicular to the subfloor. This is much more important than the sunlight thing I mentioned before. In this case, it meant we are ignoring the sunlight factor doing this job. It worked out very nicely though because the direction we laid the laminate flooring in looked the best.

Finding a Starting Point
The next task is finding a starting point to begin. The things that have to be considered are hallways, openings where two rooms meet and common walls in adjacent rooms.

The install that we did here was really a bit tricky. We had two rooms, the kitchen and the dining room. They did not have a common exterior wall. This is helpful for laying out where to begin the laminate flooring. Getting things to line up in separate rooms can be bit tricky.

The trim in this house was just beautiful. Very old and well taken care of. We definately wanted to preserve and reuse it.

Removing Existing Trim
Removing trim like this without damaging it is almost an art. You have to get a thin prybar between the wood and the wall and gradually get it farther in. You then wiggle it back and forth and try to get the trim to separate further. Like I said, it's an art.

Once you get it in good, put a piece of scrap wood behind the prybar to protect the wall. It's easy to bust a hole in the wall when you pry on it. Get one end free from the wall and start 'bouncing' it. It's hard to describe, but basically bounce the free end back and forth and move the prybar and scrap down the length of the trim. You'll pull the trim off more and more. Apply pressure with the prybar as you 'bounce' the free end. Eventually, it will come off. Whoever installed these boards, did not intend for them to be taken off though.

This house featured blocked inside corners. They had to be removed as well. We also had blocks at the bottom of the casing. This is a very popular style, especially in the Midwest. The blocks had to be removed as well because all this trim was installed right on top of the subfloor. The laminate needs to slide underneath the trim.

Other Options
In some situations, you may have to use a flush cut saw to cut the bottom of the casing, or event the jams for any door openings. You have to have an 1/8" clearance for the expansion of the laminate. I'll get into that a bit more later, but the main point here is we have to think ahead on how we'll finish it. Don't try to cut around wood. It won't look good. Even if you could cut it to fit tight, you can't do that because of the expansion. So if you can't remove the trim, you have to cut the bottom off so that the laminate can slide underneath it.

About the Author

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