How to Install Wide Plank Laminate Flooring
- 1). Remove the existing trim from around the floor, using your hammer and prybar. Try to avoid damaging it. Extract the nails with your hammer and set the trim aside.
- 2). Roll out your foam underlayment along the longest wall in the room. Cut it to fit at the end with a razor knife. Lay the next row of underlayment alongside the first, butting the sides together and running a piece of duct tape along the seam. Cover the entire floor this way.
- 3). Pick out a bunch of the shorter floorboards from your supply. Lay them in one row from the longest wall across to the opposite wall, side by side, with the sides connected, to see how many courses of flooring will fit.
- 4). Measure how much area is not covered, split the difference between the two sides, and subtract three-eighths of an inch from each. This will determine how wide the floorboards at each side should be. If your boards are 8-inches wide, for example, and the space not covered is 6 inches, you'll need a 2-5/8-inch course of floorboard at each end.
- 5). Rip the boards of the first course on your table saw, setting the fence of the saw to 2-5/8th inches (or whatever your figure is) and slicing off the grooved side. Set the cut sides of the boards alongside the long wall, three-eighths of an inch from the wall, to allow for wood expansion. Clip the ends of the boards together. Cut the lengths as needed using your miter saw.
- 6). Lay subsequent courses by locking the sides of the boards together and working your way across the floor. Rip the final course in the same manner as the first, to the same width, but this time cut on the tongue side. Again, position the cut side toward the wall and leave a three-eighths of an inch expansion gap there.
- 7). Re-install your floor trim, using your trim nailer and affixing it to the wall rather than the floor. The trim should cover the expansion gap.
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