Friday, September 24, 2021

New Flooring For The Garden Room

Hi, Friends,
How are you?
I hope you are staying well and encouraged. 


I've wanted flooring for the garden room for a long time. Years ago, we put down tile everywhere because we had a very naughty dog. It didn't matter that there was a dog door. He had accidents in the house anyway because he was so high strung. He needed dog therapy. 
I thought tile was low maintenance. Nope. Grout is never low maintenance. Trying to keep grout clean is such a nightmare. We had wide grout lines which was even more of a problem. 
The garden room has the prettiest light for photography but the floor looked terrible. 
Once we did the hard wood floors two years ago, the kitchen and the garden room were next on the list.  We had such problems with our flooring company that I could not face another flooring situation. "The virus that shall not be named" popped up so it's taken two years to revisit our flooring needs. We also purchased the East Texas house which caused a shift in our focus. 


 We love our floors out in East Texas because they are pretty and durable. We purchased a luxury vinyl plank and had it installed. Bill could have installed it himself but I didn't want him working on floors for multiple weekends. We protect it from scratches but that is about it. It can be wet mopped which is a bonus since it's so sandy out there. 



We began to feel like LVP was a good choice for the garden room. 
It is impervious to water unless a flood of water gets up under the flooring.
Watering plants will not be an issue. It looks off in photos but in person it looks almost like real wood. The winning factor is it can be installed over most existing flooring. 
We could lay it over the tile! Cracking up tile is a horrendous job. 


I wanted to see if I could install the flooring myself. Bill had to work but he was working from home so he was able to do the occasional heavy lifting. I had the cutest assistant as well. Can you spot her in the photo above?  


Once I got the hang of it, the planks were easy to snap together. 



This room is 21' by almost 10'. I was able to get it installed in one day. 
I should have paced myself and worked on it a second day because I was exhausted. 


We got NuCore Waterproof Flooring in Driftwood Oak from Floor & Decor. 
It was around $550.00 to do the whole room.  


There were a couple of sections where the tile wasn't perfectly level. Unfortunately, I didn't think of shimming the plank until I was almost finished. There are a couple of spots that make a slight noise when they are stepped on but that doesn't bother me. My childhood home had the same issue. 


We decided that I should start at the front of the room and work my way toward the window in case there were partial planks. Sure enough, we needed a small sliver right under the windows. 


The planks can be cut and snapped with a razor blade knife. Bill had no problem scoring the vinyl with one pass. He made the first cut since I was chicken. I took over from there, though. 
It took me several passes since I'm not as strong as he is. The razor also got dull as the day went on. I didn't think to change it often enough. 


The gray chair and ottoman went upstairs to our room and we brought Bill's recliner downstairs. 
He doesn't watch T.V. anymore so the recliner didn't get used. 




It coordinates well with the brick wall. 
Bill got new floor molding and installed it. 


The new flooring has really warmed up the space. We love it. 


The above image captures all three floors - the wood in the living area, our kitchen and the garden room. Our kitchen floor is very early vinyl plank. We have had it for 23 years and it's almost indestructible. 
I'm not sure what we do about replacing it because it is losing shine.  


The floor was easy to install. It's affordable, beautiful and it's low maintenance.
It's a win. 
That is about it for now. 
Thank you so much for stopping by. 
Katie 


6 comments :

  1. Wow, so gorgeous! You did an amazing job, Katie. I love the color and how it coordinates so well with the brick. It makes a huge statement. Always so nice to have a helper when tackling a big job. I see she likes to be up high to "supervise". Have a good weekend. Hope the scorpion situation has been resolved.

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  2. I love the picture of your kittie peeping through the handle of the brass pot, and the floor looks great.

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  3. Your floor looks very nice. Wish I had a garden room!
    Be a sweetie,
    Shelia ;)

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  4. It looks fabulous, Katie. And I love that you have done it by yourself. It really anchors the room. Very nice indeed!

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  5. I love all the new low maintenance floors. Very easy to clean and maintain especially with fur babies. Your garden room floors look beautiful. Love your sweet kitty peeking through. Have a good weekend. xoxo Kris

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  6. The new floor looks gorgeous! I have heard good things about this LVP flooring. We are planning an addition on our home and I am seriously considering using the LVP in the entire addition. :-)

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