Floor Replacement Guide
It’s not every day that you replace your floors, so when you do, make sure you take the correct steps to prepare yourself and your home. Below are a few pointers to help guide you along the way.
First Steps
Even before you go floor shopping, take a second to consider why you need new floors.
- Is it because your existing floors are old or stained?
- Maybe your new paint and furniture no longer match the old floor?
- Are you just tired of the existing one?
Understanding your needs and conveying them to you flooring specialist from the get-go will help him/her guide you to the product that’s best for you: There are products specifically designed for certain applications, and analyzing your current needs will help determine what your future wants will be.
The next step is to consider where you would like to redo.
- If you need to have a new floor in your living room, would your dining room look funny or outdated if it too wasn’t replaced?
- Would you want new flooring in your closets?
- Do you want your stairway to be updated?
Draw a quick sketch of your home and do your best to approximate the size. LUX always sends a professional out to measure your home (free of charge!), but having a ballpark will help your flooring specialist have an idea of how much material you need.
With those two steps completed, you’re ready to visit a LUX showroom or design center. Your flooring specialist will take the information and run with it, but will most likely ask you a few more questions as well:
- Do you have Children or pets?
- How many people live in the home?
- How much traffic will the floors experience?
- What is the room used for?
- How long do you plan on living in that location?
- When are you looking to get new floors? (we can put them in as soon as tomorrow!)
- Is the new floor upstairs or ground level?
- Is there any source of water, such as a sink or a drain, nearby?
- How is the lighting in that area?
You may want to bring a curtain, paint chip, or even a sofa cushion to your LUX showroom in order to help explain the design of your room to your flooring specialist.
When you’ve chosen the floor that’s right for you, it’s time to prepare for the installation. Ask your flooring specialist any questions you may have. Certain key items you should be aware of are:
- Dust: LUX certified installers will do their best to keep your house as dust-free as possible. To aid them, be sure to vacuum your old carpeting two or three times on the morning of or night before your installation. For jobs that require sanding wood floors, it may be a good idea to seal adjacent rooms with plastic before the installers arrive; this will limit the extent of dust spreading throughout your house.
- Doors: LUX installers will gladly remove interior doors while installing your new floors. Upon completion, they will replace all doors to their original locations, but if the new floors are thicker than your previous ones, the doors may not fit. In this case, they will leave the doors off the hinges so you can shave the bottoms.
- Old Flooring: If you are removing the old floor coverings on your own, please leave the tackstrips in place and the jobsite in as clean of a condition as possible. If you have spoken to your flooring specialist about LUX removing and/or disposing of your floors, then relax, you’ve got nothing to worry about!
- Paint: Lux certified installers are careful with your walls, so go ahead and put that fresh coat of paint on before you get your new floors! Our installers won’t scratch and damage your walls; just please be sure that all paint is dry before we come in.
- Wasted Flooring: All jobs have odds and ends that will be wasted. Let our installers know if you would like to keep any pieces before they leave. If you would rather not, we’ll take them away upon completion of your job.
- Seams: Today’s technology makes carpet seams extra strong, but they are still not completely invisible. LUX installers will do their best to make them as inconspicuous as possible, but if you’re sensitive about the appearance of your seams, speak to your flooring specialist and installers to understand where your seams are going to be. If you’re uncomfortable with our suggestion, we can work with you to position a seam under furniture or in an area that you prefer, but please understand that this may increase the waste factor of your job and consequently increase the amount of material needed.
- Furniture: We ask that you remove any and all items that you can pick up with a single hand (such as picture frames, decorations, etc…). Lux certified installers can move large furniture for you, but that must be specifically requested in the planning stages of your project. We ask that you move any and all electronics (including TV’s) from the jobsite; due to the delicate nature of today’s technology, we cannot be responsible for damage done to these items.
- Kitchen Appliances: Please disconnect any electric or gas appliances before our installers arrive. Due to the inherent risks, we cannot accept responsibility for disconnecting or connecting appliances.
- Bedrooms: Please remove bed sheets from your bed and drawers from your dressers. Please also make sure your closet floors are open and accessible for replacement.
- Bathrooms: Please have your toilet and floating sink disconnected and removed before our installers arrive. We cannot accept responsibility for damage done when removing or replacing utilities in the bathroom.
