With the original water heater out and the walls painted, we were ready to install the new floor!
The previous owners were kind enough to leave us a stack of replacement linoleum tiles, in case we wanted to keep this floor and patch the places where it had been broken. We were determined to make every room our own, and Jesse had found a great deal on engineered hardwood floors.
Preparation
The old tiles came up fairly easily, much easier than sheet vinyl floors would. We had picked up a couple of 2-inch putty knives, in the end we favored the method of tapping the stiff knife with a rubber mallet when we were having trouble getting under a tile.
Unfortunately, the flooring we picked out was not available in any nearby stores, and we were left waiting for it to be delivered. That delay offered us some time to work on other things around the house and shop and get very detail-oriented with the painting. There were some gaps between the wall and subfloor, so we bought a flexible waterproof caulk and filled that in.
We painted all of the existing trim Icelandic while we waited for the floors. Here Jesse is working on the trim in what we’ve been calling the Wall Hug.
Instead of getting the more traditional hardwood baseboard, we went with a primed particleboard trim. We enjoy the look of natural wood but we are trying to keep things within a budget, and a painted trim helps give our multicolored rooms a more cohesive look. We cut and painted these while we were waiting on our floors.
Since this floor was on such an incredible deal we made the leap and ordered enough for the laundry room, living room, and dining room. This meant a semi-truck drove backwards down the entire length of our narrow residential road to bring us a pallet of boxes. This also meant that we were terrified that we had ordered so much of something without ever even handling a sample and were antsy to see how it looked.
Before we could install anything, we had to let them sit in their boxes inside the house for at least 3 days. More waiting!
These are engineered wood floors. Before you call us nuts for installing wood in a laundry room, we picked these because they were marketed as waterproof. We also plan to get some leak alarms to avoid putting that to the test.
Installation
Step one on the installation was to remove the tongue from the boards in the first line. Jesse wanted to give it a go without power tools but then felt pretty silly actually trying to accomplish this with hacksaws as suggested in the instructions. At least he had beer. In the end, we decided we weren’t equipped for this, which meant more waiting.
Table saw to the rescue! We had borrowed this table saw from Jen’s dad before for a smaller project. This time they said “just keep it there until you’re done with it,” which we think might mean they never want to see it again. The face shield may seem excessive but Jesse discovered on the first cut that his safety glasses were not successfully keeping the sawdust out of his eyes.
After installing the first two rows, any worry about the final look of this floor was gone.
With Jen measuring and installing, and Jesse sawing in between bursts of old floor purging in the rest of the house, the hardwood was down in no time at all. On the left, Jen is seeing if this end board would fill the requirement of being 6 inches away from the seams on the previous row. We had mistakenly cut the first board about an inch shorter than we meant to, which ended up giving us two starting board lengths to choose from on every row. We’re not fretting about the extra scrap but looking forward to making some matching coasters when we’re done with the other rooms.
They were advertised as random lengths but truthfully there were 3 consistent lengths. There were far more long boards than small or mediums, we favored these by always cutting them for the end pieces instead of starting from whichever board was closer to the intended dimension. Random seam placement is hard to accomplish with consistently sized panels. We threw in a small or medium when using a large would cause a seam to align with one in a recent row.
Happily, Jesse returns for some hammering and installs the baseboard with finishing nails.
Before and After
We are completely thrilled with the results. Once the trim was in we spent the rest of the day just sitting in the laundry room, admiring it, and talking about what it would feel like for the whole house to look this nice.
The door has been left bright white for now, we think it might look nice for it to match the appliances instead of being a wall or trim color.
Total Cost
There are plenty of small details to go in this room, but most of them will probably wait until the other rooms are finished.
The floor and underlayment for this room cost $133.89, and the baseboards were $29.76 (including an extra 7-foot segment that we’ll either use in another room or make into a frame). Our total cost for tools, paint, and materials was just under $275. A cursory search tells us that the average cost to remodel a laundry room is $6000. Of course, we haven’t added any new fixtures here like cabinets or shelving. We’re going to wait until the appliances arrive before deciding what to add in the way of wall fixtures or furniture.
Speaking of appliances, we caught the Memorial Day Sale Madness and ordered a new washer and dryer set. Our shiny new water heater, though, was a gift from our friend Sarah. Thank you so much!
What’s Next?
Our contractors still haven’t been able to start work, so nothing can be done about the bedroom or office. Our easiest available next step is the living room and dining room. It will basically be the same work as the laundry room but on a larger scale. We’re both eager and nervous to tackle the kitchen, and may start dismantling that while we’re in the “wait for it to dry” steps on the front rooms.