New Floors

What a transformation right?! Wait till you see all the work that went into these floors.

Clean slate, ready for flooring.

This is the section that will get tricky. To prepare this area, I used some Liquid Nails to glue down the vinyl that was lifting up.

I screwed some wood pieces over top of the edge while the glue dried to for better adhesion.

I also used the staple gun in the harder to reach areas. While this dried, we laid out our floor to figure out a pattern we liked.

The flooring we are using is the peel and stick Style Selections 6-in x 36-in from Lowes in Antique Woodland Oak Dark Brown

We started with a clean slate. First Kyle used the shop vac to make sure all the large dust and debris was cleared out of the trailer. Then I used the wet mop Swiffer pads to clean all the floors once over. Next I would work in sections. I sprayed the Goo Gone Project Prep spray on first and let that soak in for a few minutes. Then I wiped that clean. This was to help take off the waxy surface the old vinyl had on it. Next I sprayed an all purpose cleaner to make sure all of the Goo Gone was cleaned away. After the all purpose spray I went over the section with some plain white vinegar and wiped that up just to make sure the surface was super clean. This is vital to good adhesion. I may have gone a little overboard but in the sections I took this extra care in, the flooring stuck no problem. 

Here we go! First tile down. We decided to start in the corner and work our way out from there, trimming as we go.

I would lay the planks inside and Kyle would go cut and lay out the next row outside. All the planks have various patterns and tones to them so he was laying them out in a way that would be aesthetically pleasing. 

Coming along nicely!

The most important part (besides cleaning) is to make sure the floors get enough pressure after they are laid down. It is recommended to use a 100lb roller but we don't own one of those and it probably wouldn't fit in the trailer. Some people suggest using a can of food, but that was awkward and kept sliding out from under my hand. This method worked best for me. I put a towel down on the floor and laid our level on top of it and put pressure on it as I moved back and fourth over the planks. I also sat on the finished floor as I worked forward with the new floor as we went along. 

I also used a rubber mallet as I laid each piece down, especially where the seams and corners were. 

When we got to obstacles, Kyle would measure it and cut the flooring piece so it would fit around.

Ok time for the hard part. This area was where we replaced the floor and wall with OSB. I primed the whole area and then sanded the floor down a bit. We bought this Universal Flooring Adhesive, that is the stickiest stuff around. The directions say to spread it evenly with a trowel…and that its not meant to be used on OSB subfloor…So we will see how this works. 

This glue seriously stinks. Make sure things are well ventilated thats for sure! It is super sticky too. Way sticky. Everything was stuck together by the time I was done. This is the trowel I used to spread the glue, it was hard to make an "even thin coat" due to the rough unevenness of the subfloor. 

Here is the start of laying the floor on the glue. The start of it went very smoothly. But once I got more boards in, glue started seeping out of every nook and cranny.

I really had to take care with wiping down all this glue that was squeezing its way out. If I were to do this again, I wouldn't use the trowel I would just use a putty knife because you don't really need that much glue. It ends up seeping out and making the biggest mess ever. Since I was sitting on the floor as I worked, half of my legs were glued together and the towel I was sitting on glued itself together. It was a sticky mess.

I powered through all my fear of sticky situations and got the rest of the boards laid. Next was time for clean up. While Kyle worked on the dinette floor, I scrubbed away at this area I just finished, trying to get all the excess glue off and wiped clean.

It took us all day to finish this floor, we put in a good 8 hours today just on the floor itself. But it sure turned out nice!  We have to take the trailer back tomorrow since we will be gone this weekend so hopefully the next time we open up the PUP the floors will still be looking as nice as they do today!