One Room Challenge {Week Three} - How to Install Vinyl Plank Flooring

Adding vinyl plank flooring to your home? Follow these five simple steps to install vinyl plank flooring in a short period of time.

I can't believe it's week three of this amazing whirlwind of a challenge!  That makes us half way done already - Eek! If you missed it, a couple weeks I kicked off the One Room Challenge, by shared my plans to renovate our

Step One

Remove old flooring. With carpet, you just have to grab the carpet with pliers and pull it away from from the tack strips on the walls. Most other flooring can be cut and then pried up with a pry bar and a mallet.

Step Two

Clean your floors. This means removing the old nail strips with a pry bar and hammer, or scraping off old glue with a glue remover (or a putty knife and Varsol).

Step Three

Make sure your floors are level. Luckily our floors were in really great shape, but if there are bumps, or uneven spots on your floor you should address this. I recommend a self-leveling grout. If there are bumps, you may need to consider installing sub-flooring or grinding down the bumps with a diamond grinding disc and a grinder.

We placed our flooring down on the basement floor, and I was a bit concerned about the temperature, but it's actually very nice - I'm glad we didn't spend the extra money on a subfloor that wasn't necessary!

Step Four

Add glue. Put glue down along the perimeter of the room. If you want the flooring to be permanent, you can start laying it right away. If you want to be able to remove it (like we did! In case a board gets damaged.), then let the glue dry for a couple of hours before starting to lay down the planks.

Step Five

Lay your flooring. You want to lay your flooring so that all of the lines are staggered, and there is a minimum of 7" between joints in adjacent rows. We used a measuring tape to measure the distance of the pieces, used a speed square to make a straight line, and cut with an X-Acto knife. Once cut, the boards easily broke over our knees. You can make the cuts on a table saw, but this is MUCH easier, and works just as well.

Once the flooring was done, it was time to tackle the trim and mouldings! Honestly, we haven't gotten to the trim yet, but we did replace the ugly old pony wall mouldings with new straight edged sleek mouldings.

We pre-painted everything so that it would look pretty. Then we cut them and nailed them in place. Lastly, we puttied all of the holes. Now we just have to get the rest of the trim up, and paint it all one more time! <insert my panicked face here>. We are running out of time!

Finally, time to start on some decor! I couldn't wait to search for DIY light fixtures this week. Can't imagine why I would've wanted to replace this old boob light?!

I gathered up some of my