Replacing your flooring is one of the most significant and longest lasting decisions you make for your home, if you make it correctly, and the flooring is installed correctly. Unfortunately, many homeowners fall victim to rookie flooring mistakes that turn their dream project into a flooring nightmare.
Here are the four most common flooring mistakes, and how to avoid them.
Choose Materials Carefully
Choosing the wrong materials for the project is the most common blunder that homeowners fall prey to. Something I’ve seen countless time is when homeowners choose wood that is too soft for a home’s floor, and they have children and animals that beat up the floor as soon as its finished. This mistake leads to replacing or refinishing the floors in a matter of years instead of decades. If you have kids or animals or both, consider the damage that your floors will have to be able to absorb before you choose materials. You can use soft, cheap, pine planks for your floors, but that doesn’t mean that you should.
Another common materials mistake is when homeowners without design knowledge choose a material or color that doesn’t mesh with the home’s other design elements: Cabinets, fixtures and wall colors. An example mistake I’ve seen several times is laying a solid color tile in a home with a “farmhouse” style. Many a full home remodels began as the result of a floor that clashes with the rest of the room, or doesn’t match anything in the home at all. If you’re a DIY type and you’re choosing materials, consult someone with some design knowledge before you install.
Lastly, the flooring industry is constantly innovating, but it is often a mistake to jump on a trend too soon. Yes, finished concrete floors are “in” right now, but how will it look to buyers when you try to sell your home in ten years? Trends change everyday, but you’ll still have that polished concrete floor long after its become passe. Once upon a time, paisley wallpaper and shag carpet was in every home. Today’s fashion is tomorrow’s mistake. When dealing with an element you have to live with for decades, like flooring, it’s always best to choose the timeless, not the trend.
Penny Wise, Dollar Foolish
Unless you plan to update your floors every few years, looking for the cheapest option on the market is not a good idea. Yes, your local big box store sells peel and stick vinyl tiles for less than a dollar apiece, but you’ll be peeling up those tiles and sticking new ones down a lot sooner than you’d like. Have you ever peeled stickers off of something? No matter how slow and careful you are, the adhesive and parts of the sticker remain stuck. Now think about all the time that is required to rip peel and stick tiles up. You save on the cost of the flooring, but the time and effort required by those cheap materials are never worth the savings.
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The Value of DIY Versus the Value of a Professional Flooring Installer
Cheap materials and cheap installers often leave homeowners with much bigger problems than old, worn out flooring. Take a look at this story: Someone had to call us in to correct a big box installer mistake.
The first step in any flooring project is to establish a budget. Figure out the most that you can afford, take into consideration how it’ll increase the value of your home, then choose the best materials, and install them yourself, or choose a reputable installer that helps you do the most within your budget. Consider how much time that an experienced installer saves you. From design to choosing materials to demo and, of course, the installation itself. Hiring a professional flooring installer ensures that no design or installation mistakes are made, and that your home is put back in order as fast as possible. FM Pro Remodeling is successful because it makes financial sense for homeowners to hire us.
Beware of anyone who tells you to skimp on supplies, such as the proper underlay or membrane. Underlayments dampen noise and insulate. Membrane prevents cracks in tile and grout by allowing he subfloor to move independent of the tile. Once again, just because you can install flooring without underlayment or membrane, doesn’t mean you should.
You wouldn’t hire an amateur electrician to rewire your home, or an unlicensed plumber to reroute a sewage drain. Don’t do the same for your floors. Be sure to choose a certified flooring professional to ensure your floors are installed up to code, using the latest techniques and best materials for maximum longevity.
Choosing a cheap contractor and cheap materials is like clenching a penny in your fist so tightly that you can’t pick up a dollar on the ground right in front of you. These choices can cause much bigger future problems.
We understand the value of doing it yourself. You get an education, and you get to be proud of the project you completed yourself when its done. However, if you’re installing hardwood floors for the first time, and your home is taken apart for weeks as you learn, once you’re finished and you’ve learned all of those important lessons about subfloors and joists and how wood expands and contracts, when will you use that knowledge again? Hardwood lasts decades. Its crucial to consider whether you should DIY or not carefully. There are many factors.
Good Things for Those Who Wait
There’s one virtue that is absolutely necessary for remodeling projects, patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your kitchen, living room, bedroom or bathroom floor can’t be finished in a single day either. Once a floor is demoed (contractor-speak for “demolished,” meaning the old floor is completely removed and all debris cleared away), it still may take anywhere from two to four workdays to lay a wood panel floor and even more for a tile floor. If your subfloor needs to be replaced, or there is any other work to do, this extends the length of the project further.
Even when the floor looks finished, it still takes time to let glue dry, it takes time for grout to set, and then floor has to settle into place for a period of time before it’s safe to walk on without damaging it. Expect at least one workweek to complete a new floor in a medium to large room, and that’s assuming everything goes correctly, with no surprises. Old homes are always full of surprises. If your installer discovers hidden problems, such as a rotten subfloor, uneven joists, or other issues you can’t see until the work gets started, there will be delays.
Keep this in mind as well when you’re drafting your budget. The last thing you want is to have to stop construction in the middle of a project so you can save up for unexpected repair work. Hold back at least 10% of your total budget for unforeseen circumstances.
D-I-You’re Kidding, Right?
If you haven’t installed floors professionally before, the “D” in “DIY” might end up standing for “damage.” Flooring is an art as well as a craft, and it takes years of experience to get it right on the first try. The Internet is full of DIY disaster stories, where homeowners’ attempts to save a few bucks resulted in damage to their homes, and thousands of extra dollars sunken into their floors. But if you’re handy, you’re willing to do a lot of homework, and you don’t mind having part of your home inaccessible for a while, DIY floors are always an option.
If you want to avoid these mistakes, and save precious time, call or email FM Pro Remodeling today with any questions, for a free consultation, or to schedule a free estimate.
