Beginner's Guide - How To Install Vinyl Plank Flooring - Anika's DIY Life

hey guys anika here from monica's diy life and today i'm gonna dive into all the details of how we installed lifeproof vinyl plank flooring in our kitchen entryway and staircase area we did have vinyl plank flooring in these areas previously and it was very poor quality and was starting to pop up in various areas and becoming a trip hazard very fast now since the new floors were going into the kitchen entryway area we needed something that would be durable waterproof and easy to maintain after a lot of research we decided to go with the lifeproof vinyl plank flooring that is exclusively available at the home depot and i am partnering with my friends at the home depot to install this new flooring this was the first time we were tackling a flooring project and it was so much easier to install than i had expected and i'm going to show you exactly how to prep for it what to watch out for and lay it down including the staircase the first step of the project was obviously to demo the previous floor we started by removing the base boards and labeling them for reuse and then removed the old floor which was pretty straightforward and a fun family activity now we were not sure what we were going to find underneath especially because we had seen problems with the original floor the first thing we noticed was that there were two types of underlayment underneath the area of the flooring that had the problems had a flimsy blue underlayment so we've taken out all the flooring and we have found that there are three different types of flooring in this area we have the tile we have a vinyl and we have an area where they used to be vinyl which was removed but it's in a pretty bad state the vinyl was flaky and tacky in spots so we decided to remove it the best we could so we could start with a smooth surface with most of it off we went over the entire area to push in any nails that were sticking out the floors were pretty level so we didn't have to worry about that but we went over any deep dents and grooves that were deeper than a quarter inch with floor patch and let it dry overnight now before you start laying down the new floor there are a few things that you need to take care of first vinyl plank flooring is a floating floor and needs to be able to move around with contraction and expansion due to temperature etc so if you intend to add any sort of heavy immovable fixtures like cabinets or built it you need to do that before you install the flooring in fact one of the things that we found during the demo was that the threshold was screwed into the floor which could have been a possible reason for the issues that we were having with the flooring now since we were changing out the entire floor we took this opportunity to add some extra cabinets to our kitchen and sort of extend the kitchen out and it has actually ended up being a full-fledged kitchen makeover so i will be sharing more about that in future videos in fact we installed a set of new cabinets before we even took apart the old floor so we just cut through the old floor and remove parts of it to install those cabinets and second you want to measure and map out the entire area this would be really simple for a rectangular room but our area included an entryway a dining space a kitchen and a little pantry so it was a bit complicated once you have that you can just divide the width of the room by the width of the planks to make sure that you don't end up with a skinny plank at the last row if you do you want to accommodate for it in the first plank so that you have equal widths on both ends we got really lucky with the layout in that we just needed to trim off about two or three inches on every last row similarly for the depth of the room you want to make sure that you don't end up with a board that is less than eight inches on either ends and there needs to be an at least eight inch stagger between the seams so you want to calculate for that before you begin each row now we're ready to install but before installation if you're going to have any transitions between floors you want to install those strips for the reducers and you want to thoroughly vacuum where you will be installing the flooring because any debris getting stuck in the locking system will only cause problems finally let's start installing lifeproof vinyl flooring comes with underlayment pre-attached so that is one last step and the manufacturer instructions that come in every single box of the flooring are very detailed and an excellent reference point we picked the color dusk cherry which is a very light brown with gray undertones and it was a nice change from the previous dark color i also ordered a flooring installation kit online for pickup at my local home depot and it came with everything i needed to install the flooring i have a link to that in the description below now you want to always start at the left corner of the longest wall in your space but the left side is really subjective we spent almost two hours trying to put together the first couple of rows and no matter how hard we tried we could not get it to attach properly and it turns out we started at the wrong left so here's the trick this is the long side of the plank this is the tongue side and this is the groove side similarly on the short ends as well you have a tongue side and a groove side so when you place your first plank you want the tongue side of the long end towards the wall and the groove side of your short end towards the wall so basically you want to have the tongue side of the short end exposed when your plank is installed for the first row i cut out and removed the tongue part using a utility knife this is the side that will be facing the wall the first row is pretty simple to install you just snap the planks together with a few taps of a mallet once the row is ready you can push it to the wall using quarter inch spacers between the wall and the planks to cut the boards down there are a few different options now you could simply score with a utility knife and snap it or you could use a miter saw but if you do that be sure to do it outside because that stuff is nasty if you need a cutout like i did you can simply trace that onto the board and use a jigsaw or a hand saw to cut it out now for the second row the first plank of the second row is pretty straightforward as well you just hook it into place and snap it in for the next plant you want to hook it into the long edge at 45 degrees gently push it over and drop it down you should be able to push it together with your fingers and follow that with a few taps of a mallet on the short side to make them snug next hook the plastic block from the installation kit on the side and tap it to push the edges together till they are all snug then we just repeated the process again and again and again the drop lock mechanism makes it really easy to install it is just a few taps on each plank in fact if you are using any amount of excessive force you are probably doing it wrong and no matter how much you pound it you will never get it to work if that happens inspect the plank for debris and clean it out in fact you should be vacuuming every surface and each plank one of the problems you could run into which we did a couple of times is that the upper corner of the short side might not become flush with the rest of the floor this happens because you've probably nicked the corner of the drop lock mechanism in that case you want to remove that plank and replace it with a new blank also be careful holding the plastic block while tapping if the block or the mallet slips you can damage the locking mechanism on the board which brings me to the point that when ordering flooring be sure to order at least 10 to 15 percent extra over what your square footage is to account for the wastage you would have cutoffs at the end although you can probably use a lot of the cutoffs at different ends of the rows to minimize wastage but you might damage boards you might make a wrong cut you don't want to run out of flooring in the middle of your project also as you are laying down the flooring be sure to mix up boxes so that the colors and the patterns and the shades are well mixed up throughout the room around the door jam you can use a scrap piece of vinyl and a multi-tool to cut the door jamb so that the plant can slide underneath for a clean look since i have a kitchen there were a lot of corners to cut out but as you make these cuts you want to remember to always always account for the quarter inch spacing that it needs to be all around once you get in the groove it actually goes pretty fast for the planks in the very last row the kit comes with a special bar to use to pull the boards together and that is the final plank in this kitchen now onto the staircase the staircase was a bit of a beast to demo because the stair noses and the planks are glued with industrial adhesive i think this was the most laborious part of this entire project once they were all out and all cleaned up we started installing stairs are relatively simple you just cut to size and rip the plank to fit behind the stair nose i used a table saw for this but you could also do that using a utility knife then just apply industrial adhesive and put it in place add a few pin nails and apply weight over it the open corners of the stairs are a little bit trickier as you need to cut the stair noses to wrap around for a clean finished look as you can see we ran out of dumbbells and weights but we had enough heavy paint cans for the entire staircase and that's the staircase i installed new sterilizers with the same pattern as before and i will link to the full video for that in the description below to finish off the floors i added the reducers for the transitions which easily snap onto the metal strip that we had previously installed i added quarter round around the cabinets to cover up the gaps you can buy quarter round to match your flooring but i used pre-primed quarter round because i am going to be painting the cabinets soon and i can just paint them to match then i installed baseboards caulk them painted them and now we have a whole new room you might notice that we installed the entryways separate to the kitchen area because that was a little less than a quarter inch higher and we needed a transition between those two floors the floor looks awesome and has a big impact on the space it's nice and bright it feels awesome under the feet and is durable plus it was super easy to install with that click lock solution the entire process took us about four days including the demo and the stair install and i think it's a great option for a beginner flooring install i have links to the exact flooring i used and all the tools i used in the description below if you have any questions about this please leave them in the comments below and like i mentioned i have a complete kitchen makeover on its way too so stay tuned for that you

Channel: Anika's DIY Life

Views: 64,906

Rating: 4.8683982 out of 5

Keywords: how to install vinyl plank flooring, how to install vinyl flooring, how to install vinyl tile flooring, vinyl plank flooring, how to cut vinyl plank flooring, installing vinyl plank flooring, lifeproof vinyl plank flooring, loose lay vinyl plank flooring, luxury vinyl plank flooring, lifeproof vinyl plank installation, flooring installation, installing vinyl flooring, lifeproof vinyl flooring, luxury vinyl flooring, do it yourself

Id: leVLBjMpibc

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021