Learn me Flooring on a Budget

The carpets in my house are turning 33 years old this year. 2 kids, 4 dogs, they need to get gone. It stinks when you vacuum, I'm sure you've seen the ugly brown in a lot of my pictures, it's time for a change. 

But we're staring at a full roof replacement in 2020, so trying to save money and budget towards that now, I'm trying to keep costs low, which means doing it myself. 

I'm looking at my downstairs. Living and dining rooms for a total of about 400 square feet, that's rounding up by a lot when I take walls and the pellet stove into account. 

My first thought was an epoxy floor. They make low smell interior blends now, definitely the cheapest option, but prep work has the potential to suck, as I don't know what is under the carpet downstairs. It also looks like it would all need to be done at once, which leaves me struggling with somewhere for furniture, toys, etc. Unless it can be sectioned in which case it's definitely the winner here. 

I'm also seeing LVP, luxury vinyl plank, at very cheap prices, sub $1/ sq ft. They state "flipper friendly" and come with a 10 year warranty. Definitely cheap, but I don't know how it would work on a slab. It has the benefit of being able to work in sections, and being peel and stick, should be easy to get down. I've never worked with this before though. 

I've seen porcelain tile in a low price, but I really don't want to do that, same with VCT. 

I'm looking for brighter shades, cream, white oak, off white, something not brown. I'd prefer something glossyish to maybe reflect some light around and make it a little brighter in here. 

The kicker? I'm trying to get this done for a grand or less, and not need to do it again in a year. 5 years absolute minimum, 10+ preferred. 

I'm fixing to do LVP at my house. My plan is to use the snap together floating stuff. It's about $2/sqft. Water proof, dog proof, kid proof and hopefully life proof. I need to sell this place in a few years. 

SanFord is getting some glue down LVP that I picked up at Ollie's Bargains for next to nothing. If you have one local, check there. I think they were close to $.75/sqft.

Check out the nearest Lumber Liquidators.  They have an annual or semi-annual clearance sale where they clear out stock by the pallet. The rub is that you are buying a pallet of flooring, and it is first-come, first served. That means that you're choices are somewhat limited and you may need to buy more than you need.  But, you can get a great deal. I bought their best quality stuff, for $.99 per sq/ft instead of $7.99.  I bought the full-floating stuff that needed no underlayment, which made installation easy. I picked up a special flooring saw for $100 which made it so simple.  

I’ve been installing LVP in commercial settings now for nearly 10 years, and owned 3 houses with it. 

The stuff is awesome. It’s easy to install, easy to clean, inexpensive, and indestructible. 

Definitely the winner. 

However, there is no way I would use a peel-and-stick. EVER.  It’s a great way to have to redo the floor in just a couple years. 

Use the glue down LVP. It’s really easy. 

pinchvalve said:

Check out the nearest Lumber Liquidators.  They have an annual or semi-annual clearance sale where they clear out stock by the pallet. The rub is that you are buying a pallet of flooring, and it is first-come, first served. That means that you're choices are somewhat limited and you may need to buy more than you need.  But, you can get a great deal. I bought their best quality stuff, for $.99 per sq/ft instead of $7.99.  I bought the full-floating stuff that needed no underlayment, which made installation easy. I picked up a special flooring saw for $100 which made it so simple.  

I'm on their website right now. Wood laminate with underlayment attached for $1.29 was what prompted this thread. Saw some at Home Despot for a bit less than that that also needs an underlayment, so it works out to the same. 

SVREX, when you say "glue down", like tile glue down? I've seen click together, peel n stick, v groove, but not gluedown yet. 

In reply to RevRico :

I’ve never seen peel and stick LVP. 

It is usually installed with a thin glue which is like a contact cement. It rolls on (like paint, but thin like water). You allow it to dry to the touch before installing, then you just lay down the planks. 

It’s not a trowel-on glue like tile. It rolls on easily with a paint roller. 

You may need to buy the glue from a commercial flooring company, not a big box store. 

Lvt/lvp is, as already mentioned, is really easy to work with and gives great bang for your buck.

Quieter and better wearing than wood, not cold underfoot like tile or laminate, pretty much the easiest flooring to do from a diy standpoint. 

However (there's always a however isn't there?), Pay attention to board/plank thickness. Some of the planks out there are rather thin, which isn't necessarily a problem or con as such, but shadowing becomes more of an issue the tinner the plank is . By Shadowing, I mean that imperfections in the substrate will show up in the finished floor. So nail heads, grit, lumps, bumps, divots, cracks etc have the potential to make your finished floor look a bit E36 M3.

I used a very thin commercial grade plank when I redid my floor, it was about 2-2.5mm thick from memory. Fantastic to work with, but I had to do alot of prep to make sure I got a finish I was happy with. In hindsight, a thicker plank would have given me a bit more fudge factor in my surface prep, but hey.... Clearance pricing can really help you overlook things like that.

In reply to daeman :

That’s true. I wasn’t offering installation tips. 

LVT/ LVP are very prone to telegraphing (what you called shadowing). Proper floor prep is a must. Follow manufacturers instructions.

Most of the cheap thin stuff is off the market (but you’re right, gotta watch for it). I installed over 120,000 SF of residential grade LVP in a high traffic medical facility- over 800 patients per day. We did construction activities on top of it, even demolition. Indestructible. 

Another vote for LVP. We just finished renovating our entire house a couple months ago.  Have LVP throughout the entire house less the bathrooms and kitchen. I’m talking the PVC backed stuff that does not require underpayment, I would not mess with the peal and stick stuff.  Super easy to install, super easy to clean, and ours resembles old barn wood so it never looks dirty.

I did floating vinyl in my kitchen/ laundry room after seeking recommendations on here. Love it! I did it myself and it came out great. It was a lot of work but worth it. I could have made it easier on myself if I had bought a proper saw instead of using my table saw in the garage. 

The peel n stick Already decided it's a no go, but a link to it anyway. I liked the price and the color, but thought it was overly thin. 

I'm liking this. 10mm thick, with a 2mm underlayment attached. I would  probably add another layer of underlayment though for a little extra room between the slab and my feet. 

But I'm just trying to get educated now, this is a spring or summer project. Sounds like LVP or laminates are the way to go though. 

In reply to RevRico :

That 10mm stuff is not LVP. It’s laminate. Engineered wood. 

In reply to SVreX :

Aside from being twice as thick, is there a big quality difference or abuse resistance difference? 

The kiddo turns 4 this summer, and the lab is pushing 100lbs, so I guess abuse resistance and insulative properties are high on my list of priorities. 

I know you speak very highly of the LVP, but I'm finding mostly 3 to 5 mm thick there. I'm under the (probably false) assumption that the thicker it is, the better it will be underfoot on the slab. 

At least at lumber liquidators and home depot the cost is about the same, so I'm trying to find reasons to pick one over the other. 

In reply to RevRico :

Yeah, bad assumption. 

3 mm is plenty thick enough for LVP. 

Engineered wood is laminated. The visible layer of color is sometimes measured in thousandths, not mm. It’s essentially plywood, with a picture of wood on it.

Its much less durable than LVP.  It’s also harder to install. 

In reply to RevRico :

Note that the Lumber  Liquidators’s 30 year warranty on that 10mm stuff specifically excludes indentations and scratches (caused by pets, furniture, appliances, tools, heels, toys, etc.)

Ollies is a good shot if you have one near...

I recently did a decent sized room with this and am very happy:

https://www.samsclub.com/sams/laminate-flooring-canyon-trail/prod21230982.ip?xid=plp_product_1_15
https://www.selectsurfaces.ca/reviews

It was on a good sale at the time and appears to be good quality. 12.5 sq ft per box. Bought 24 boxes (limit 12/member on the sale, but I have friends with membership too) with total outlay under $500. As long as the floor underneath is flat, clean, and dry, you should be fine. I think we ended up with ~$400 out of pocket after returning the leftover unopened packs. I liked that as long as you plan the installation, you can easily add a piece at a time or "undo" a piece at a time until the entire floating floor is in place. 

Getting rid of the stinky carpet smell (we had a large area rug) is a HUGE plus. 

I'm thinking about a similar thing for my house, but I'm a weirdo.

Google paper bag floor.  You take pieces of ripped brown paper bag and glue them down with a 50/50 glue wash or wallpaper paste.  Then coat with about 5 coats of polyurethane.

I thought about going with an industrial look and just laying 4x4 or 4x8 sheets of luan.  Maybe screw them down with drywall screws with the little stainless trim washers.  They'll be low enough to not be a trip hazard but noticeable to the eye.  Then I would stain them something funky like red or green, but you could just keep them natural with poly.

When doing polyurethane, your choice of products will affect the color.  If you want it really light, do a water based poly.  Oil based poly is amber in color.  Since the solids are the same thing, they will have similar durability.  The oil based gets a slight nod for durability, but not by much.  Figure 10 years for water based and 15 years for oil based.  My favorite is Parks which is made by rustoleum.  Highest percentage of solids per gallon.  Better than Minwax and cheaper.  Some here *cough cough* prefer shellac.  I don't, but it's personal taste.

Depending on what you have for subflooring under the carpet you might be able to get a deck or flooring paint that will seal and finish the surface for hardly any cash.  The caution is that you have to make sure that if you put something over it later the adhesive is compatible with going over the paint.  

That's what we did in the basement of the new house and upstairs at our old one to get an easy to sweep up and not awful looking option while we worked through the long term renovation projects.

In reply to oldopelguy :

Yes, that is possible. 

But with 2 kids and 4 dogs, I wouldn’t do it. 

Pick up the carpet, scrape the slab clean, put down a foam vapor barrier/padding recommended, put in the snap together floating engineered wood. flooring. 

It takes more time to cut out the shapes at the doors than anything else.

My hospital is 1.8 million square feet and of a variety of flooring my new favorite is LVT.  Do that, it'll have the best long term results. 

Bringing this back because I have a stupid question. If I'm using the glue down LVP, I'm not going to be using an underlayment am I?

For insultative properties alone, should I consider a snap together with underlayment or will a gluedown be fine?

I find that the insulation that foam underlayment provides is so minimal that I wouldn't worry about it.  The MCT and VCT in my old house wasn't any colder than the laminate with a foam barrier.

The main reason I chose those materials was because I wanted the kitchen to be MCT so I went to the trouble of laying down hardiebacker and leveled the floor.  I did laminate in the living/dining room because I wasn't going through all the labor of leveling two other rooms... and the laminate looked better in a living room/dining room setting.

Just be aware that vinyl tile or plank really needs a nice smooth surface or it will eventually conform to all the seams.  A rigid plank like laminate is more forgiving of uneven subflooring.