How to install Laminate Flooring

Disclosure – I received product for this post from Armstrong Flooring, but all opinions are my own.

This past weekend the Mr. and I installed our new white washed laminate flooring in our sunroom and I’m totally in love with it. Like, the Mr. has walked in on me several times lying in the middle of the floor just petting it lovingly, in love with it. He may be getting jealous at this point! It was SO easy to install and the results are beautiful.

We used Forestry Mix in White Washed  by Armstrong Flooring, not only is it the perfect rustic white washed wood look I was going for, but it is going to be so much more durable than real wood would have been.

Laminate flooring is getting soooo cool you guys! They have so many different patterns and textures now, I love that you can really achieve a rustic vibe, old barn wood look, or distressed finish.

Armstrong has a collection of laminate flooring that helps you get that high end designer hardwood look, but without the price. The flooring I chose was from their Rustics Premium Collection, but I almost chose one from their Architectural Remnants collection, there are so many amazing options that offer the depth and texture of real reclaimed wood, I had a hard time choosing which one to use!

Architectural Remnants comes in several different designs and eight colors, and also comes in varying sizes too.  The collection includes:

ANTIQUE STRUCTURE – a natural-looking reclaimed wooden floor with distressed and worn white paint

SKIP PLANED – created by the effects of textured sanding

and WOODLAND RECLAIM – which brings together multiple species of wood, in multiple widths (I can’t even tell you how bad I want to rip out our real wood flooring in our house an put this in, it’s so gorgeous!)

Like I said I had a hard time choosing, I also loved the Rustics Premium Collection and ultimately chose my flooring from that collection. Here is my same flooring, but in a darker wood tone –

FORESTRY MIXED  BROWN WASHED

I know this floor is going to hold up with our kids and dog running around because it comes with VisionGuard™ Plus, a wearlayer, to protect it from staining, fading and wear-through. The other thing I love is that both Rustics Premium and Architectural Remnants totally feels like solid wood under your feet. The floors are 12mm thick and have a special HydraCore to make them feel more stable. This is not your mamma’s laminate flooring!

The Lock&Fold® installation was so easy and fast, seriously anyone can do it! It only took us about 4 hours to do this whole 14 x14 room now I’m tempted to rip all the carpet out of my house and put laminate everywhere! And with the 50 year warranty why not? This is the point at which the Mr. gives me the stink eye…

Here let me show you how easy it was to install!

STUFF YOU’LL NEED – 

  Saw

  Exacto knife

  Underlayment

  Flooring

  Your own two little hands

STEP 1. 

Prepare your subfloor by sanding any rough/uneven areas, checking that all nails are properly sunk, and vacuuming. You want a nice clean and even surface.

STEP 2.

Unroll the first row of underlayment over your floor, trimming at the edges with a knife. Make sure you get it nice and smooth.

STEP 3.

Unroll your next piece of underlayment and bump it right up to the edge of the other piece, making sure they don’t overlap. Our underlayment came with tape already stuck to it, so we just had to peel it back and stick the 2 pieces together – so easy!

STEP 4.

Repeat the above steps until your entire floor is covered and smooth. We had to cut a little hole in ours to let that white wire thru that you see, since we will have an outlet in our floor.

STEP 5.

Lay out your first row of boards with the lip facing the wall, leaving 1/4 inch of space for expansion. We made some spacers out of a few pieces of scrap moulding we found in the garage, but you could just buy spacers too. Make sure you are pulling pieces from at least 3  boxes of flooring at a time, so that you are getting a unique and random look.

STEP 6.

Use your saw to cut the last piece of flooring to fit the first row in your space. Being sure to make your cut on the backside to avoid marking up the finish.

STEP 7.

Now to start your 2nd row, cut your first piece so there is at least an 8 inch overlap to give you a nice random brick like pattern. Now slide them together and snap!

STEP 8.

Continue snapping your flooring in, being sure to keep your intervals a bit random to get that real wood flooring look.

STEP 9. 

Step back and enjoy your gorgeous floor!

Totally love it! I’ll be sharing better full floor reveal shots soon, once we get all the baseboards and trim on so you can really see how beautiful it is.

Are you ready to try your hand at your own laminate flooring? You got this! Be sure to check out all of Armstrong’s laminate flooring options. Or to find a retailer near you, so you can see the gorgeousness in person click here.

You can also check out more detailed instructions on how to lay your flooring right on their site here.