In order to have the carpet and vinyl installed, we had to prepare the floors. For both carpet and vinyl
you want the floors to be as level as possible so that joints don't show and also so you won't feel any
lumps or bumps when you walk across the floor. The first thing we did to prepare the floors were to
sand all of the joints until they were smooth and flat.
Here is Robert sanding the floor.
Once the floor was sanded to a point that we were happy with them, we filled in any cracks with a
floor filling compound. This helped to insure that cold or warm air wouldn't be able to leak through
the floor and to make sure that the floor was solid everywhere. We also screwed down the joints
of the plywood to the rafters below to make sure that over time, the joints don't start to come loose
and squeak. We then vacuumed the floor extra carefully to make sure that no dust would be
trapped under the carpet or vinyl.
For the vinyl we had to also put underlayment down before the installers came. We fit all of the
pieces except for the pieces under the toliets in place. This way we did not lose the use of the
bathrooms as it is a long walk in the middle of the night to the downstairs restroom. The day
before the installers came, we removed the toliets and fit the remaining piece. We then nailed
the corners only as the installers were going to staple the joints with a special stapler.
Here is the underlayment in the master bathroom after the joint sealer has been applied.
When the installers came to install the vinyl, they first stapled all of the joints down. Then
they rough fit the piece of vinyl by first cutting the piece to the rough size of the room and
then taking the piece into the room and laying it out. This allowed them to cut the piece exactly to
match the walls and cabinets. After fitting the piece they removed the piece and applied a joint
sealer to all of the joints to make sure all of the joints were level and no cracks would show
through the vinyl. When they were ready to install the vinyl, they applied a glue to a portion of
the floor with a saw tooth trowel like we used when we installed the tile. The piece of vinyl was
then installed on that section of the floor and the remaining portion was then rolled on top of
the installed section and another portion of the floor was covered with glue. They repeated these
steps until the vinyl was in place throughout the entire room. Finally , the installers used a heavy
roller which they rolled over all of the floor to smooth out any wrinkles and to make sure that the
vinyl was secured to the glue everywhere.
Here is master bathroom after the vinyl has been installed.
After the glue is allowed to set for 8 hours, we were allowed to put the toliets back in place.
Once the floors in the rest of the house were leveled, sanded and swept, Margaret filled in all
of the nail holes in the baseboard. She then applied two coats of polyurethane and then sanded
the baseboard with steel wool. She then applied a final coat of polyurethane and sanded one last
time with steel wool. All of the heating registers were removed as part of the preparation. We
then removed all of the main doors and the closet doors. Fortunately, Margaret had the foresight
to label each door before removing them.
Here is the living room after it has been prepared for carpet, but before the carpet is installed.
The carpet installers started by putting down tack strips all around the edges of the wall. Tack
strips are pieces of wood that are about an inch wide and come in about 4 foot lengths. On one side
of the strip, there are little nails with the pointed end sticking out of the wood. This side is left up
and the smooth side is placed down on the floor and nailed to the floor. The reason the side with
the nails are placed up is so the edges of the carpet can be hooked over these nails to hold the
carpet in place.
Here is a tack strip being installed.
Once the tack strips are all nailed down, they bring in the foam padding that will be placed under
the carpet so that it feels nice on your feet when you walk around your house. The padding is not
hooked onto the tack strip, but fitted up to the edge of the tack strip. Once the the padding is
layed out, the installers staple the padding down to the floor.
Here the padding is being stapled to the floor.
The installers are then ready to bring the carpet into the rooms where it will be installed. How they
proceed next will vary from different carpet installers. Some installers bring out the roll of capert
and cut the carpet to fit on the jobsite. This means that if the carpet piece is too small for the room,
they will have to create a seam with another piece of carpet. This requires putting a backing strip on
the back of the two pieces of carpet and gluing the two pieces together. This can take some time to put
everything together, so some installers, glue pieces together at their shop so that the carpet is ready to
be fitted and trimmed once it gets to the correct room. Our installers had most of the rooms all ready
to go when they arrived, there were only a couple of rooms that they had to seem together. The carpet is
layed out in the room with lots of extra carpet all around the room going up the walls. All carpet
installers do warn you that there may be some minor damage to the walls (scratches) when they are
done because of this.
Here is the carpet layed out in the room before it is fitted.
The next step is to stretch the carpet tight so there are no wrinkles throughout the room. The installers
have a long pole with a flat end on one end that they place up against the wall. The other end also has a
flat end, but with little feet that will grab the carpet. The end with the feet also has a lever, which when
pushed down, expands the pole. This stretches the carpet as one end of the pole is against the carpet,
which is up on the wall and does not let the carpet move. The other end grabs the carpet and pulls it
tight hooking it onto the tack strip that was installed along the edge of the room earlier.
Here is an installer stretching the carpet.
Sometimes the room that carpet is being installed in is not square, so if the installers would try to stretch
the carpet, they would get wrinkles throughout the room. So the installers have to tack down the carpet
in order to divide the room up into square sections. They tack down the carpet using little tack nails that
hold the carpet temporarily while they are stretching the carpet, but are removed when they are finished.
The next step is to trim the carpet down to the exact size of the room. The carpet has been stretched
and tacked down and is ready to be trimmed. Using a sharp knife, the installers go around and trim the
carpet along the edge of all of the walls.
Here is a room that has been stretched and trimmed, ready for clean up.
Some houses do not have straight walls to install carpet against so installers also have to be skilled in
cutting and fitting carpet around unmovable objects such as pipes, fireplace hearths or in our case,
spindle on the stairs. The installers had to cut around two spindles on each step so that it appeared
that the carpet was not cut, but rather a hole was drilled in the carpet. They then had to allow enough
carpet so that they could tuck the carpet underneath the stair step and tack it to the bottom of the stair
step.
Here is the installer fitting the carpet around the spindles on the stairs