Hi,

I'm completely new to laying laminate flooring, so I hope these questions aren't dumb ones.

I plan on doing my entire upstairs bedrooms/living room except kitchen and bathroom.

My first question is this, when I do a bedroom, and continue the flooring into the hallway, should I use a T-Molding in the doorway? Is that normal, or no? I plan on using the same color in the bedroom as I do in the hallway. If I use T-Molding it would make it much easier for me, and I could do a room, and the hallway at a later date.

My second question is regarding the stairs. What do you do with the sides of the stairs. The part that you don't stand on, it's hard for me to explain, maybe somebody will know what I'm talking about. Right now it's just carpeted, so I assume when I remove the carpet it will just be the original wood used to build the steps.

Thanks for all your help,
Grant

if the floor doesnt have a direction change and is layed parallel with the door you can try to leave a factory side on the board in the threshold, cover it witha t-mold until you do the hall, it may not fall right in the center but you will be fixing that later on. I would opt for a solid tread on the stairs vs. covering with laminate.

it is best to t-mold in door ways less than 4 feet in width. With expansion and contraction it could buckle in the door way. There is a laminate company that sells stair treads that work real well. Expensive though.

Gosh. Does anybody here remember, back when engineered was called laminate?

If it is a engeneered(laminated wood), what method of install is being used? If nailed go through the doorway with no transition, if floating I would t-mold. I don't like call backs for buckled wood.

My dad still calls engineered laminate I have to remind him he is going to confuse people nowadays every time we talk about it.

Thanks everyone. It's floating floor.

I've thought up a couple more questions I figure I should make sure before starting.

How do I do a doorway, or other areas (fireplace) that don't use trim? Do I cut it to size, or still leave the gap?

I know when starting a new row, my board should be atleast 16 inches, but what if I get to my final row to do, and the area left is say an inch, is this ok?

Also, when doing stairs, is there a recommended way to lay it? I'd think just one solid piece from end to end, but that would leave roughly an inch from the end of the board to the edge of the step. I haven't got my stairnose's yet, so I'm not sure how much distance they add, so maybe that's the proper way to do it?

And one last one for tonight, I was looking at the installation tips. In the underlayment part it says to have the underlayment go up the wall a couple inches, in the picture though, the side that is being rolled is not up the wall. Do the sides need to go up the wall, or just the ends, or both. My underlayment did not come with sticky removable tape, so is there some sort of tape I should be using to tape it to the wall? I've seen I can use duct tape to join the seams, but I'd obviously not want to use that on the wall.


Thanks again.