How To Remove Carpet And Install Hardwood

Replacing Rug with Hardwood Floors

Posted by John on January third, 2022

Ahhhhh.  Feels good to finally write that title.  This projection has been on my wish list for this house since we moved in.  It's been autonomously of our M Plans for several weeks now and I can put a bank check in the box.  Equally I write this though, I still have to add the quarter rounds on the perimeter of the room and exercise a couple stain pen touch ups before I can Actually phone call it done, just otherwise I'thou happy as a mollusk.  Oh and Lisa and I volition be replacing our family room rug with hardwood this coming weekend, so I yet take to get my hands dirty once again with hardwood floors very shortly.  I'm already excited!

*** I'm going to suspension this floor install up into a couple posts, considering there'due south a lot to write about, so cheque back later for more info and tips.****

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I'll give you lot the why'southward and what's.  The reason we're pulling upward the rug is really due to the fact that we both love the wait of it over rug and it adds a lot of value.  Moreover, we take a pocket-size domestic dog that does shed a wee little bit and occasionally barfs, then keeping hardwood clean is a petty chip easier.  Information technology may help with some of our allergies likewise, although they've been minor to begin with.

The floor is a Bruce hardwood called Manchester and it is a 3 1/4″ wide oak floor stained ruddy in colour.  It's the very same floor that we have in the balance of our firm.  We bought it from an online distributor called QualityFlooring4Less and picked it up at a local receiving warehouse in PA.  Here's the kicker… the challenge to this project begins before y'all even lay down one board.  The boxes weigh around seventy lbs a piece.  I needed 600 foursquare feet plus five-10% extra, which totaled 28 boxed.  That's nearly ane ton!  This isn't going to fit in the back of my k cherokee!!  We had to rent a Uhaul to get all that forest home.  Plus endeavor conveying that all in.  Not. fun.  I was exhausted before I even began this project!!  Nosotros threw the boxes in our first flooring office to become them out of the way.

Another very of import requirement when installing hardwood floors is to let the material adjust in your home for a few days before yous start the task.  The forest must conform to the temperature and humidity properly.  If you just install them right away, they're liable to expand or contract after y'all've installed them, possibly ruining your piece of work and the wood.  We let ours remainder around four-v days.  Kinda abrasive, merely yous bargain.

So, let'south get to it.  How to replace your wall to wall rug with hardwood.

Part 1:  Carpet Removal

Hither's what our living room looked liked earlier we started.  This was taken even before we painted.

In one case we removed the article of furniture and the pictures, we were ready to rip upwardly the carpeting.  Well, actually I've been ready to rip information technology up since we moved in, but that's another story.

Removing the carpet is pretty easy.  Only pull up on the corners and the carpet will come correct out.  I used a box cutter to cut the backside of the carpet and I cutting it into two big sections that tin can then exist bound with duct record and discarded.  We're going to try to donate ours.

The carpet is adhered to the subfloor with a thin nail strips that runs the unabridged perimeter of the carpet area.  Also underneath the carpet is the carpet pad.  The pad can but be ripped correct upwards from the flooring.  It's held down by staples.    We'll remove those later.

The nail strips can be taken upward with a small pry bar.  Be careful though, every bit the nail strips are sharp!

I put all the removed strips into the center of the floor and then threw them into a cardboard box for disposal. You don't want to accidentally step on one of these!

Now for those pesky staples.  Little bits of the carpet pad go stuck under the staples that go on it tied down to the floor.  I removed as much of the pad from the staple as I could with my bare hands and so I turned to a pair of needle nose pliers to remove the rest.  Vesture gloves if y'all're going to remove the staples.  I didn't and got a blister!!

Once the floor has been prepped past removing the carpet, the pad, the nail strips, staples and whatsoever other debris or garbage, it'south a good thought to sweep and vacuum the subfloor clean.  Later on it'south been cleaned, it'southward time to lay down the rosin paper.  There are a couple different types of hardwood underlayment paper that y'all can use, merely I like the regular red rosin newspaper because information technology'due south cheap AND I had some left over from our first dwelling house.

Only roll it out and overlap the seams by a few inches.  It'due south necessary to use considering it acts a buffer between the hardwood floor and the plywood subfloor, which eliminates creeks and squeeks and makes for an easier floor installation.  It doesn't accept to be perfect, it just needs to exist in place.

Part 2:  Installing the Floors

At present to start the floor.  Since I'thou directly tying my new floor into my old, I'm going to keep my planks in from the dining room.  Eventually, the floor will have to be integrated into the floor in the foyer, but I'll save that info for my next mail service.  You can see in the photo below, that the old floor had a small quarter round that volition demand to be removed.  I popped mine off with a pry bar.  Came correct off.  Estimate it wasn't glued.  Thank God for short cuts.  Besides, my last dining room floor board doesn't accept an obvious tongue or groove, so information technology won't exist able to intersect MY start lath.  It has to go.  I also removed it with a pry bar.  Be careful when you remove boards.  If y'all don't do it right, you can harm the board behind it!!  Then it never ends, so exist careful!

Let's throw downwards the kickoff lath. I choice my boards soley based on length. I don't want whatsoever of my boards to have an end seam within 2″-three″ of an end seam on an adjacent lath. You lot tin can meet that my first lath is well clear of that on the dining room floor lath.  For the first lath, information technology get's butted upwardly against the wall on the left and then pulled abroad near 3/8″.  Forest mostly doesn't expand in the lengthwise management, but a trivial gap won't injure.

I'll bang the board into place with a rubber mallet that came with my blast gun and nail it into place with my smash gun.

Like that activity shot?  After the first board is in, you just lay downward the next board and proceed down the line.  If yous weren't installing hardwood against an existing hardwood floor, then the first row volition demand to exist confront nailed and not angle nailed.

When you get to the end of a row, you can either measure out the gap to the wall with a tape measure to decide the length of your last lath OR you lot can use this piffling play a trick on.

Selection out your floor board and lay it adjacent to your row.

At present flip it over lengthwise and pull information technology away from the wall past around three/eight″. Mark the behind of the board where the end of the previous board meets it and cut on that line.

Now you can install information technology. Quick and easy!

Afterward several hours of continuing this I was able to become the floor to a expert stopping point.

Afterwards this week, I'll prove you how to integrate the floor into boards that run the other way!!  Trust me, it's much harder than information technology looks!!

Take yous ever installed hardwood floors or are y'all planning information technology?

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Posted in Flooring. Tagged in ,Bruce Hardwood, Floor

How To Remove Carpet And Install Hardwood,

Source: http://ourhomefromscratch.com/2012/01/replacing-carpet-with-hardwood-floors/

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