hardwood flooring installation

Five Ways to Prepare for Your Wood Flooring Installation

No matter how professional and efficient your flooring installation service is, there's bound to be a reasonable amount of chaos introduced into your life by the arrival of a crew of people doing work in your home. It's simply unavoidable. However, there are some things you can do to mitigate the disruption and ensure a smooth, headache-free experience. Here are five ways that Carpet Giant in Houston, TX suggests you prepare for your installation that will make your life quite a bit easier.

1. Bust the Dust!

Without a doubt, dust is going to be the biggest nuisance to come from your wood floor install. Any company worth their salt will do what they can to minimize the spread of dust from the work area, but if dust is going to be a major irritant to you or your family members, you may want to take the extra step of sealing off doors that are close to the work area, by applying a sheet-plastic curtain to them and sealing the plastic with tape. A loose plastic curtain will help a little bit, but sealing the plastic with some tape will all but ensure the dust won't creep into the room.

2. Safely Store Your Doors

Again, any decent work crew will remove and store your doors as part of their service, but there is no guarantee they will do so safely. If you have particularly nice doors in your home, you may want to consider removing them ahead of your work crew's arrival, and storing them away from the work site yourself. Simply stack them in an area away from the work site with some form of cushioning between each door. Blankets work well for this.

3. Take Out Your Baseboards

The easiest way to ensure your new flooring fits beneath your baseboards properly, is to simply remove them and reinstall after the work is done. Many companies simply undercut the baseboards to fit the floors beneath, but this is a less preferable method to removal. If you don't have particularly fancy baseboards, this can be a great opportunity to replace them with newer ones that match the new look of your room, after the floor has been installed.

4. Remove the Door Trim as Well

This is a much more problematic and highly optional step to take. There are very few installation services that will actually perform this step and for good reason. Replacing door trim is a complicated and time consuming process. However, if you are concerned with having a super-polished install, this may be the right choice for you. Just be warned, if you choose to go this route, it's a long road ahead of you. Do this at your discretion.

5. Ensure Your Subfloor is in Order

If subfloor installation is not part of your installation package, you're definitely going to want to make sure it is in good condition and as flat as possible. If the subfloor isn't included in your package, your flooring crew will definitely just roll right over it without a second thought, because it wasn't supposed to be their problem. To avoid any imperfections in your new floor, make sure that subfloor preparation is part of your package, or take it upon yourself to be sure it's ready. It's extremely important!

If you take these few simple steps, you're all but sure to have a smooth, pain-free installation experience!