What to Expect When You’re Expecting the Flooring Installer
Published: October 22, 2021
You’ve found the flooring of your dreams, and now, as the installation date creeps closer on the family calendar, it’s time to prepare yourself – and your home – for the big event. Whether you’re having hardwood, laminate, carpet, tile or vinyl put in, what you do next – and what you don’t do – can go a long way toward ensuring a smooth installation.
Your flooring installation needs to be the last step in a multi-phase room update. That’s the best way to avoid dripping paint on your brand new floor or dragging ladders across it. Plan carefully and stage your process for efficiency and best results.
Give us the room
Your installers need an empty room to do their job effectively. Remember the conversation you had with your flooring consultant about the process and responsibilities of moving furniture and appliances, especially heavy or fragile items? If you agreed to take care of those tasks, now’s the time to make the arrangements to do your part. It’s easy enough to relocate a few chairs and end tables, but sofas, dining room tables, glass-fronted highboys, ranges, refrigerators and other big pieces – not to mention pianos and grandfather clocks – call for more than one pair of hands.
Not sure you really want this to be a DIY experience? Call a local moving company and ask for a quote. Remember that this process consists of two parts: moving things out and moving them back in. When you return them to their places, you want to take extra care to avoid damaging your brand-new floor. And if you’re the proud owner of a curio cabinet filled with antique glass, figurines or other small, expensive, fragile pieces, please do remove them from the cabinet before you move the cabinet itself.
Other things to clear
While you’re emptying out the room, don’t forget to remove hanging mirrors and artwork. No, you’re not carpeting the walls, but all flooring installations involve some amount of vibration, which could dislodge your family portrait gallery and drop picture frames onto the floor. Those clever removable strips you used to mount your photos may not withstand the installation process, so play it safe and remove them.
You’ll also want to make plans for kids and pets. A baby gate can keep many species contained outside the room where your installers work, but some pets – especially cats and birds – have a knack for finding their way through or over obstacles.
If you haven’t replaced a floor in some years, today’s adhesives aren’t the smelly affair from years past, so the use of glues or mastics doesn’t present the post-installation you may remember. You may want to keep your pets out of the room for a day or two, although you can venture back in yourself almost immediately after the installation finishes.
Lead, follow and get out of the way
Here’s one of the most important rules to follow: Once you’ve led or guided the furniture move and corralled your animal friends, don’t be a sidewalk superintendent during the installation. However interested you may be in what’s going on, remove yourself along with the furniture and let the professionals do their job. Check in to see how it’s going, but don’t be underfoot. You’ll only slow down the process.
Dealing with surprises
Installation time provides the first real opportunity to assess the condition of your subfloors. Unless you’re in the midst of new construction, or you’ve gutted a room and are preparing to redo it, the first time your subfloors will make an appearance comes while we’re removing your old flooring.
Where you see water damage along a baseboard from leaks or flooding, you may need some subfloor remediation to take care of problems. Major signs of pet staining also can point to hidden damage. The most-common subfloor surprises tend to involve three things: homemade plumbing fixes, leaks, and mold, mildew or other forms of contamination. This flooring installation may be the first time you’ve ever been able to verify that a toilet’s really attached to the floor and that your tub never leaked. We do everything we can to assess and make you aware of warning signs before our installers arrive, but old flooring can cloak some unwelcome mysteries. In fact, if you’re redoing a bathroom, make sure you’re prepared with the contact information of a good plumber, just in case.
Focus on you
Kermans installation professionals care about the quality of your flooring just as much as the rest of our team does. We want your floors to offer a timeless expression of your personality. Unlike the big box stores, which offer you a price and leave you alone to sort out your design decisions, we’re as tuned in to your choices as we are to your end results.
Whether your flooring needs to serve either as the backdrop for dramatic furnishings or the foreground focus of a room, we’re dedicated to helping you achieve the results you really want. If you’re still in the planning stages, drop in to see our vast selection or schedule an appointment with one of our design consultants. While you’re here, we’re happy to answer all your questions about installation, and help you prepare for a wonderful result.