The allure of flooring options

I don't know about you but every time I head over to either the orange or the blue box to pick up one little thing, I end up losing 2 hours between the shelves. I simply get carried away nosing through fixture options, researching door options in a spur of the moment decision, marvel at the number of knobs and pulls and get sucked into the paint selection aisles fondly petting paint chips.

During one of those extended visits I also hit up the flooring aisle and stumbled across the resilient flooring options.

I usually abhor vinyl and linoleum, especially after having to live with it for a while and seeing it at the Duckling before we ripped it out, but the resilient vinyl plank flooring under the name "Allure" did catch my eye. I even snatched a couple of samples to take home and was pleasantly surprised that if you looked down at a wood-style sample casually dropped on the hardwood floors of our rental you were hardpressed to out it as vinyl.

Intrigued I showed it to the husband, prepared with cost rundown and online reviews. We stewed over it for a while, then decided to go for it in our laundry room. After all it is specifically advertised for high traffic areas (check - the laundry room is also the gateway to the back yard), areas with higher moisture (check - laundry room, 'nuff said) and comes with a 25 year warranty (no worries until after the Little Man finishes college).

The online reviews we discovered also encouraged us: ease of installation, looks great, price is right, no expensive prep work. All said and done we went to the orange box and ordered enough Allure resilient plank flooring in "Slate" to cover our laundry room.

The boxes shipped right from Georgia in time for Mother's Day and since we're running dangerously close to not having anything to wear unless we get the laundry room finished and the washer and dryer hooked up again, dear husband went right to work!

[Clean sweep!]

After cleaning the subflooring in the laundry room and making sure no untoward nails were poking out where they shouldn't, we ripped into the boxes.

[It's getting late - apologies for the dark pictures]

The instructions are simple and very straightforward although husband mentioned he'd wished for some extra information. I think the only information missing on the package I feel we could have used would be the suggestion to start by the door you walk into the room rather than the opposite wall. Dear husband did a great job laying the flooring without it, though.

[Husband hard at work]

Rather than using doublesided tape to fix the first plank into place, we used tack nails to make sure it wasn't going anywhere. The plansk attach to eachother, not your subfloor or existing floor. No messy glue and no future owners cursing you for slathering everything with hard to remove glue. Yay!

Once the first row was in place, things went smoothly and surprisingly quickly. The plank is easily cut with an Xacto or carpet knife and the staggering of seams happens almost naturally if you cut your plank at the end of the row and use the small piece to start your next one.

[Awful After shot: It's dinner time, it's dark and there's nowhere to put the empty boxes until trash day]

All done, just in time for dinner! This was quick, easy and painless for us beginning DIYers and it looks and feels very nice. It looks like a hybrid between grey-stained concrete and painted wood floors depending on how you look at it. Sometime during the week Phil will swing by to trim out the room and we'll be open for laundry business again!