This is the second project I have helped my father-in-law, David Fesperman, complete in his Auburn, Alabama condominium. After installing porcelain tile in the kitchen, bath, and foyer we decided to upgrade the remainder of the flooring as well. We started out by doing a considerable amount of homework on modern flooring systems. We read Fine Hombuilding magazines, combed the internet for product information, and I polled the forums at ContractorTalk for several months before we made our decision. We also did not want to spend too much for the local market, which is predominantly student housing.
The condo is primarily used for entertaining during college football season and receives only occasional use in the off-season. David, my father-in-law, wanted the floor to be allergy-friendly and compliment the style of the rest of the condo. He decided on a floating, laminate floor system from Pergo. The laminate offered the “wood look” at a price that fit his budget. He ordered the flooring from Lowe’s and, after discount, only paid around $2.00 per square foot.
We began tearing out the carpet throughout the unit before the flooring arrived so that we could focus on the installation. There was no way to tell exactly when the carpet had been installed but, if the amount of dirt we found underneath was any indication….it had been there quite a while.
David spent a lot of time using my canister vacuum to remove all of the dirt from the floor as we pulled up sections of carpet. We even had to use a scraper in some places to loosen the ground-in nastiness. We were able to get all of the demolition done before the flooring arrived because no one was living in the property. When the flooring arrived, I stacked it in the closet of the front bedroom and left it there for a few weeks to acclimate. (Below) My nieces’ toys are “acclimating” in the right-hand closet 
We decided to shift the condo’s furnishings from room-to-room as we proceeded with the installation instead moving it into storage. This definitely saved money…but the headache of moving was not affected at all. We created a huge mess in the adjacent rooms as we went along but with the help of Patsy, my mother-in-law, it all went smoothly. I could tell that she had worked with David on other projects because she was very intuitive during the whole process.
Installing the floor went really quickly. We taped down 6 micrometer polyethylene underlayment for a moisture retarder which was recommended for installation on a concrete slab. In the below picture my wife, Jill is holding down the couch for us while we worked (She was working night shift at the time, so she had a good reason to be sleepy). While David and I worked on the floor, Patsy prepared the baseboards for painting. She sanded and painted all of the trim in the condo in addition to painting the new shoe molding. She also stained a considerable amount of trim, and brought out a nice finish by sanding between each application. She was definitely tired by the end of the day!
After the installation was complete, David and Patsy bought out Sam’s Club in Swiffer Sweeper pads. The floor looked great after Patsy buffed it to a high shine! We installed thresholds to transition between the tile and the new flooring. Though we all agreed that the laminate was not the highest quality material available, it is certainly a fine product for the money! Now for a few pictures of the completed job…
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