Laminate flooring in Webster Groves, MO

There are rooms in this city where a beautiful hardwood floor is the wrong investment. Playrooms with toy bins dragged across them. Back stairs and rear halls that catch the driveway traffic. Duplexes and student rentals near Webster University where the floor turns over every couple of years. Laminate is built for those rooms - its wear surface is genuinely hard to scratch, and it costs a fraction of what wood does.

It also serves owners who want a wood look through a whole level without a wood budget. On the upper floors of an Old Orchard bungalow, or through the bedrooms of a postwar ranch on the south side of town, a good laminate reads convincingly and takes daily life better than a soft site-finished floor would. We install it the same way we install anything else, which is to say the prep does not get skipped.

Laminate floats, which means it does not fasten down and it follows the shape of what is under it. Over the diagonal board subfloors common in older Webster Groves houses, that is a problem unless we sheet or level the high and low spots first. A floating floor over an uneven base clicks, flexes at the seams and eventually pops a joint. We check with a straightedge and correct it before any plank goes down.

Underlayment does two jobs: it cushions and quiets the floor, and over concrete it acts as a vapor barrier. On a second story in an old house, an acoustic pad keeps footsteps from carrying into the room below. We also leave a proper expansion gap at every wall, because our summers are humid and our winters are dry and a laminate floor that has nowhere to move will buckle at a doorway.

The measure comes first, and it includes a look under the existing floor where we can get one. On install week the crew clears the rooms, pulls the old carpet or vinyl, and takes it away. Then comes the part that decides how the floor feels for the next decade: checking flatness, screwing down squeaks in the old board subfloor and leveling anything outside tolerance.

Underlayment rolls out, and the planks go in from a starting wall chosen so the pattern runs sensibly through the doorways. Cuts around radiator pipes, closet jambs and stair stringers are fitted individually. Base or quarter round goes back on to cover the expansion gap, transitions are set to meet hardwood, tile or carpet cleanly, and the room is cleaned. Laminate is walkable the moment the crew finishes.