DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Prepwork

Here is your slight background story.  But if you are just here for how we approached this humongous and screaming project, feel free to skip a paragraph or two.

We got married at the end of May 2014.  It was beautiful, wonderful, and absolutely perfect for both of us.  We had spend an entire 5 months preparing (we got engaged on Christmas Eve of 2013) and saving money by doing most everything ourselves.  In April before we got married, we decided it would be a good idea to buy a house.  This house was in various stages of disrepair or antiquity.  So while we Andrew did some demolition before the wedding, we Kelcie said absolutely no work on the house during the month of May.  

In the sake of saving some time, we had the house painted for us on the inside and out (best. decision. ever.).  Everyone said to us, "But that is something normal people would usually do themselves and hire out the harder stuff like laying flooring."  Well, here is a small insight into our extremely logical thought process.  

1. We thought painting would burn us out.  As you see in some of the before pictures, even the trim was painted crazy colors.  And the backs of doors.  And the insides of closets.  And on and on and on.  Keelie, our wonderful, lovely, at the time senior-in-high-school and MOH in our wedding, turning 18-years-old 11 days before we got married, graduating 6 days before we got married, sister... had just helped John and my mom repaint his house (and completely remodel afterwards).  So we knew it would throw her over the edge if we asked!  So in 3 days, we came back and everything wait painted and looked brand new.  Amazing how that works huh? 
2. With the amount of painting, it was easier to spray.  Because we ripped everything out down to the plywood subfloor, we didn't care about it.  So having a professional come spray the walls and paint the trim was a MUCH easier solution. 
3. The only concession Kelcie made to the pre-wedding rule was allowing things to be done that needed absolutely 0 supervision.  In that logic, hiring someone to paint was inside those parameters. 
4. It is much cheaper to pay someone to paint with a sprayer than it is to hire someone to lay your flooring for you.  We got some quotes on the flooring and it was going to cost equal or greater than the cost of the flooring materials.  This was not okay with us. 

So we got home from our honeymoon and got to work the following weekend {the weekend of our friends' annual camping trip to the river that they are still reminding us of -- but we were working guys - see?!}

How hard could it be - right?

Here was our approach: 

• Ask your extremely competent brother (or bro-bro depending on your perspective) to help you with this project. Promise him nearly everything in return for his help knowing that he would much rather hold it over your head for the rest of his life.
•  Invest in some tools*: 
• Gloves and Tool Belt - this set seems cheesy but the gloves fit my extremely tiny hands, comes with two sets and the tool belt, for less than $16 with Prime shipping.... in the words of Charlie Sheen - #WINNING
• Painters Tape safe for your wood floors - this is good to have on hand while laying and moving
• Giant Post-Its - okay - so it's not technically a post-it.  It is actually Elastilon.  But it reminds me of one.  You will see this item in lots of our pictures, and while on the fence when we gave in and purchased this "extra", we think it helped make our project successful in many ways
• Wood Floor Laying Kit - any will do.  Just make sure it has spacers, the "knocker" and the rubber thingy-ma-jig.  Yes, even for click-and-lock (ours was click-and-lock and we still used the HECK out of this thing!)
• Teeny tiny hammer - we actually picked one up at Lowe's as an impulse that was intended for children to use to build teeny wooden model Food Trucks (no kidding).  Everyone made fun of it, but it turned out to be a very useful thing.
• My best friend Sharpie - just go ahead and buy two for every person you have helping - you'll thank me later
• Yardstick - once again, go ahead and buy at least one for every person helping + 1-2 extra.  It will save you time later
• Other honorable mentions: calculator, pencil, measuring tape, crow bar, regular size hammer
• Order your flooring (in store or online), get a moisture barrier (a thin sheet of plastic to help protect your floor from evil water coming from underneath), and start thinking positive thoughts.

We actually ordered a bamboo click-and-lock type.  We liked the price, color, and benefits of a bamboo floor.  In our case, we also got a "hand-scraped" which basically means it comes pre-dinged so you don't have to feel so bad when your 110+ dog comes and does it for you.  Or when your microwave falls off of the temporary shelf it is on in the living room and makes everything come crashing down with it.  Or whatever happens around your house that in no way, shape, or form would ever happen around ours --- riiiight. 

So because I don't have any pictures of this entire process (because we didn't intend to ever share with the world at that point), to prep the floor this is what we did: 

1. Remove all existing flooring {obviously}
2. Repair the subfloor, if needed.  Luckily for us, ours was in pretty great shape.  So we didn't have to remove and replace.  However, if this is not the situation you are in, go do that and come back and join us. 
3. Prep the subfloor by removing any protruding staples {this was our problem} or large areas of remaining glue/carpet pad.  
   
4. Sweep, sweep, and sweep some more.  Sweep with a push broom, regular broom, vacuum, and Shop Vac.  Keep sweeping until you can sweep and breathe at the same time.  This took us a while.
5. Lay the moisture barrier and staple it down.  

If you are laying your flooring in more than one room, it is very important to determine which direction you want to lay the floor for aesthetic reasons and determine the starting point,  There are a million tutorials out there on how to do this but here is the jist: remember to leave your gap allowance (for us we shot for 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch) around all of the edges - your baseboads will cover this.  You don't want to end up with a strip of flooring running along a wall less than 1 inch because it is really hard to make it click and lock in that situation.  This means you may not get to start with a full piece.  

Determine your starting spot and lay the Elastilon PERPENDICULAR to the laying of the floor - we were idiots and didn't pay attention to that instruction in particular and had to go back.  

You don't have to staple the Elastilon and if you are laying in more than one room, you can either lay it all at once or each time you go to lay a new room.  We laid it all at once. {Detailed post on what this is, how we did it, and why - later}  Yes, prepping takes forever.

Simultaneously prep for laying wood floor, have your dog running around, and ask your dad to help replace doorknobs if you really like chaos. We do {apparently}!

Next time we will go into why the Elastilon was a great decision, things we learned, and how to actually lay the floor (spoiler alert: it wasn't as hard as we thought, but we figured out the prep was extremely important).  Here is your sneak peek of the end of "Day 1" of laying (it was a 2.5 day process before it was all over)

*Includes affiliate links.  In no way were we sponsored to promote these items, but we purchased each of them independently and would love to cut out a few of your steps for you - because no one likes spending time doing research someone else has already done.