How To Square Up A Room For Laminate Flooring

If you install the wood right up against all walls of a room you ll likely get cracks in the wood when it doesn t have room to expand.

How to square up a room for laminate flooring.

With a laminate flooring wall not straight you ll need to measure the space between the two lines at one end of the room then at the other to determine how far out of square the walls are. Measure the width of the room by the length to get the square footage of the room then add 10 more to account for any waste or mistakes. This way if the room is out of square the crooked cut will be hidden under the cabinet s toe kick. In order to keep the floor straight and square start laying the laminate away from the wall because the wall may not be straight.

You can also use our flooring calculator to estimate the square footage of laminate needed. If your measurement at one end of the room is 10 feet and your measurement at the other end is 10 feet 2 inches then the room is 2 inches out. This will determine the amount of flooring you need. Planks can be cut with a hand saw circular saw or flooring cutter and most laminate flooring comes in planks that simply snap together with a tongue.

If you are laying wood flooring make sure to leave a 1 2 inch 1 3 cm buffer on all four walls as the wood needs space to expand and contract. In fact laminate flooring can be installed in almost every room in your home including kitchens since it doesn t have to be glued down and doesn t involve grout or mortar. In this video i am showing how to install laminate flooring for the first time. This method works fine if you have a 4 sided 4 corner room.

And something is definitely off somewhere. Start laying your wood flooring or tile using the as your starting point. Squaring a room for tile or for laminate flooring is just as important because both types of flooring have lines that run parallel to the walls. How to keep laminate flooring square.

If your room is severely out of square and you don t want to encounter this problem consider installing something without lines such as linoleum or carpeting. My great room in which i m attempting to lay laminate flooring has a recess on one wall and a bay window on the opposite wall for a total of 10 corners making it so i don t know how to square the room. Unlike tile which is started in the center of a room laminate flooring is typically installed by starting at the wall.