The brand we decided on is Engage. We got it from a flooring place by Thanksgiving Point called Floorcraft Design. We HIGHLY recommend them. We worked with Scott and he was really nice and very straight forward. They did our carpet too. We looked at a lot of places and they had the best prices and made sure we understood everything.
The flooring is 100% vinyl, not a combination of vinyl and laminate. It's waterproof, yes that's right, waterproof so it's easy to clean. It's also extremely scratch resistant. Even rocks in the bottom of your shoe won't scrape it. The kind we got is 5 mm thick. It comes in a locking version and an adhesive strip version. We decided that the locking version was the smartest due to ease of installation and the fact it would stay put.
There are a lot of different types, so there were plenty to choose from. When we were shopping for just the right color and grain, we were drawn to darker woods and even after discussions with friends and family about the difficulty of keeping dark wood clean, we decided on a dark walnut for our floors. And guess what. It is definitely difficult to keep clean.
We ordered about 860 square feet of flooring the day after we closed on the house. We decided to install the flooring ourselves to save money. If you think 860 sounds like a lot of flooring to put in yourself you're wrong. It's a RIDICULOUS amount of flooring to put in yourself! After ripping up the carpet and preparing the sub floor we laid out the vinyl to acclimate to the temperature and humidity of our house. Even though this process is needed for any type of hard flooring, vinyl doesn't contract and expand as much as other types of flooring.
We were told we could install the floor in one afternoon. That would have been nice, but it ended up taking us about 8 hours a day for 8 days straight (including a full day on Saturday). My knee had enough after those 8 days! We were asked if we could do this all over again, if we would choose to just have someone install it. We both said no. Despite how long it took, I enjoyed using my hands and being able to say I installed them myself. And Steph enjoyed saving the money.
We also had to remove the 3/8 inch raised particle board sub floor in the kitchen, pantry, entry and storage room that the linoleum was glued to. (I enjoyed the manliness of this part.)
My sweet parents even came down from Rexburg for a couple days to help out. My Dad helped me with the floor and my Mom helped paint. (You can also catch a glimpse of the paint color in our entry from that photo.)
Kitchen right after install |
Close up of the grain of the vinyl floor. |
Dining area/ kitchen |
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3 comments:
Looks great guys! Good job!
Very nice. Bob and Janene are so great about helping with those projects. You will have to let me know how it cleans.
It looks even better in person! When's the house party?? *wink*
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