A cozy living room with a brown sectional sofa, two brown chairs, and a large ottoman. A fireplace with a TV above it is centered on the far wall. Red vases and a patterned rug add accents to the room. A ceiling fan and wooden beams are visible above.
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Flooring and More – Our Family Room Update

ByLisa

While we touched on our family room when we first moved in, we mostly just painted the walls and later updated our fireplace but more was needed in this room. 

A cozy living room with beige sofas, patterned pillows, and a dark coffee table. A TV sits above a brick fireplace. There are bookshelves, red vases, and framed artwork on the walls. A ceiling fan hangs from the ceiling with wooden beams.

That 70s House is a tri-level and off our kitchen and down five steps is our family room. I have always really liked this room because it has high ceilings, it’s a good size, the kitchen over looks it and it opens up to the patio. BUT…..you knew there was a “but” coming. It had really old dirty carpet, and I HATE carpet! When we bought the house we didn’t have it in the budget to change the flooring down there, but I really wanted to. We waited a few years and then it was time to address it. I really did not want to put more carpet in because it is a high traffic area and it leads to the back yard. And our house will NEVER be a “no shoes” house. Why? for a few reasons. A) I don’t like being bare foot unless I am on the beach. B) Shoes are a part of the outfit and I am only 5’1″ and I NEED heals! C) I think its really weird and uncomfortable to make people take their shoes off when they come over. Haven’t you seen the episode of Sex in the City where Carrie’s Minolo Blaniks get stolen at a party where the host made them take off their shoes? I rest my case. Now don’t get me wrong, we don’t track through the house with muddy or wet shoes and I sure as heck don’t walk around my house in stilettos on a regular basis, but, I can if I want to! But the main point here is, we wear our shoes in the house if we want to, they don’t get left in a pile at the door.

If you have been reading along you probably already know we had hardwood installed in the living room, dining room and kitchen when we moved in. I do like my hardwood, but it’s not as durable as I thought it would be, or maybe I am getting more OCD? Definitely possible. In our previous house we had laminate wood and I actually think I liked it better. Mostly because of it’s durability. What to do. Even though tile offers some really beautiful options, I felt like it would be too cold in such a big room. So no tile, no carpet, probably not hardwood, so I was leaning towards laminate. One day, I was exploring the wood flooring isle at Home Depot and found a laminate that I LOVED! It was a hand scraped laminate made by Pergo called Coffee. Personally, I think this laminate looks more like hardwood than my real hardwood. I really wanted this!

Label for Pergo XP Extreme Performance 10mm coffee handscraped hickory flooring at Home Depot, with details like SKU, model numbers, texture, and warranty information. Includes AC-4 wear rating and compliance notes.

Dark wood flooring with a rich, reddish-brown hue and visible grain patterns. The floor has a glossy finish, highlighting the texture and natural variations in the wood.

The tough decision here was, will it look silly if the floor upstairs doesn’t match the floor downstairs? This was something Barry and I went back and forth on for a while. We ultimately decided we liked the laminate more. Even though it is a little darker than the floor upstairs, at some point we will have to refinish the hardwood and we can make it all match then. The other question was what to do with the stairs. I honestly didn’t know what to do, so I completely ignored them for a while. That solves that. You can read more about what we decided on the stairs in our wood stair makeover.

Right about now you are probably thinking, “this seems like one of her smaller projects.” Ha! I had you fooled. What I have not mentioned yet is there is also a half bath and a bedroom on this floor connected by a hallway for a total of about 500 sqft. And of course I wanted to continue the laminate down the hallway and into the office (the 4th bedroom). I really wanted a seamless transition from one room to the next to avoid breaking up the space visually, making them feel smaller. Currently, all the rooms did not have the same floor……….oh but they would soon!

View of a narrow hallway with cream-colored walls and light carpet. There are multiple doors along the hallway, and at the end, there are pet bowls on a mat next to a door.

Let demo begin! We moved everything out of the family room and Barry ripped up the carpet one day while I was spending some quality time with my mom. If you have ever laid laminate or even pulled up carpet, you are likely aware of the sea of staples underneath. In order to lay the laminate all of these needed to be removed. So we each grabbed two pairs of pliers (one needle nosed and one flat) and a red solo cup, and got to work. BTW, the red solo cup was for the staples…….I’m not in college anymore, I drink wine from a real glass 🙂 This doesn’t seem that time consuming but it is! And I swear, you think you have gotten them all and suddenly you find 20 more. True story. This was just one of the cups of staples we pulled…..

A small red cup filled with tangled metal coat hangers sits on a worn, white wooden floor next to a beige wall.

In the process of removing all the carpet and baseboards some of the walls got dinged and needed some touch ups. So we went out to the garage to get the leftover paint to touch up before we laid the floor. After all, we didn’t want to get paint on our new floors. A few hours go by and I was looking at the walls and they looked like Swiss cheese……OH NO! The paint wasn’t the same color anymore! At this point I wanted to cry! There wasn’t enough paint left to repaint all the walls and I had already “touched up” a little here and a little there. So they all needed to be re-painted. This room took us FOREVER to paint the first time. Warning, this is where my “Crazy” comes out. Rather than dwell on the amount of time this would set us back, I thought “maybe we should scrape the ceilings now too?” I mean there was no flooring or furniture in the room so if we were ever going to do this, that was the time, right? Barry did agree, but hesitantly. You can read the full post on removing our popcorn ceilings here.

Once we finished the ceiling, it did look good! But now we were about two months into this project and were just starting to lay the floor. See this project really snowballed! First we laid out the underlayment for the area we were going to install first. We could have skipped this step because the Pergo flooring we chose already had underlayment attached, but we learned from previous experience it helps with leveling issues and it makes the floor quieter when you walk on it. So we did it. We started with the exterior wall by our patio door. This helped prevent the rows from shifting too much as we “tapped” the planks together. Given that we had done this before we already had a tapping block, spacers, and this metal tool for when you get to the ends next to walls.

Image of a Roberts Flooring Installation Kit for glue or glueless laminate and hardwood flooring. The box displays tools and an illustration of a person using a mallet to install flooring, with text in English and Spanish.

If you have a square room with no obstacles like floor vents, stairs, or a wet bar…..this goes pretty quickly. I pulled boards and measured and marked for cuts while Barry tapped in the boards. Now when I say tap, I really mean hit them pretty hard to make sure they lock together, but this is what the tapping block is for so the edges don’t get damaged as you hammer. There was also some planning involved in how to lay each row. I like each row to look random, but I am FAR too OCD to allow a true random pattern of course. Basically, when I looked at multiple rows I never wanted to see the planks end in the same place for at least six rows. Most of the time, we could start the next row with the cut portion of the previous row and a “random” pattern would appear. But when the length of the room varied because of the fireplace, stairs, etc. it didn’t always work out. Once a board was cut, it could only be used as the starter of a new row since one side of the board is the male part and one is the female part. If both ends of a board had cuts, that piece was wasted and couldn’t be used. So my job was a little more complex that just handing off pieces, as a lot can be wasted if this isn’t contemplated. We used a miter saw to cut the ends of the boards and a jigsaw for ripping and more intricate cuts.

A partially renovated living room with dark wood vinyl flooring. A flat-screen TV is mounted above a fireplace showing a song info screen. A lamp is on beside the fireplace. Unfinished flooring covered with plastic is visible in the foreground.

A person kneels on a partially installed dark wood floor in a living room. A sliding glass door opens to a patio. The room is lit by a floor lamp and ceiling light, with tools and flooring materials scattered around.

A person in a red shirt and cap installs dark hardwood flooring in a living room. A TV is mounted above a brick fireplace. A window lets in natural light, and a floor lamp with a beige shade is nearby. Tools and flooring materials are visible.

It was necessary to cut several door jams and moldings during this process. Because we had encountered this on other projects, we decided to buy the power tool designed to do this to speed things up.

Image of a RIDGID JobMax 12V Multi-Tool Kit box. The kit features a compact head profile, 4 degrees of oscillation, tool-free multi-tool head, and includes one battery and a charger. Lifetime service agreement is advertised. Priced at $99.00.

The actual laying of the floor took us about 3 days as we ran into some challenges around our bar and our stairs. But nothing we couldn’t figure out after a few glasses of wine. Wine solves everything 🙂

A living room with dark wood flooring, a fireplace, and a ceiling fan. A TV is mounted above the fireplace. A vacuum cleaner and some cables are on the floor. There's a partial view of a speaker and a small table on the side.

A room with newly installed dark wood flooring. A vacuum cleaner is positioned towards the back near a fireplace with a modern design. The room is partially furnished with a lamp and small stool on the left.

Here is the finished product!

A cozy living room with a brown sectional sofa, two brown chairs, and a large ottoman. A fireplace with a TV above it is centered on the far wall. Red vases and a patterned rug add accents to the room. A ceiling fan and wooden beams are visible above.

A modern living room with beige sofas, patterned cushions, and a matching ottoman. There is a small black table with a lamp on the side. A staircase leads to an upper level, and a bookshelf and framed photos adorn the walls. Dark wood flooring completes the look.

A cozy living room with two brown leather chairs and patterned cushions, situated beside a small wooden table with a candle. Large window with red curtains illuminates the space. A sliding glass door is partially visible to the left.

A modern living room features a brick fireplace with a flat-screen TV mounted above it. Various decorative vases adorn the mantel. To the left, a black shelf holds books and ornaments. Fire tools sit on the hearth. A patterned cushion is visible.

A cozy living room features two beige sofas with assorted cushions, a large mirror, and a black and brown ottoman coffee table on a patterned rug. A nearby shelf holds decor items, and natural light pours in through a window.A cozy corner featuring a black cushioned bench with a patterned throw pillow. Above, a black and white photograph decorates the wall. A dark bookshelf holds a lamp and several candles. A sliding glass door leads to a patio with an outdoor dining set.

A geometric metal sculpture sits on top of a stack of books and magazines against a dark background. The books include titles by Joyce Carol Oates and Orhan Pamuk.

Modern split-level kitchen with white cabinets, mosaic backsplash, and stainless steel appliances. A motorcycle picture hangs on the wall below a decorative glass partition. A round chandelier and a dining area are visible in the background.

A cozy living room with a brown leather chair adorned with a white and black patterned cushion. In the background, there's a small bookshelf filled with books and decorative items by a window with light filtering through.

A cozy living room with a fireplace, brown leather and beige sofas, a dark wooden coffee table, and a large TV mounted above the fireplace. The room has hardwood floors, decorative vases, a wall mirror, and a patterned rug.

A cozy living room with a large flat-screen TV mounted above a brick fireplace. There's a brown leather chair, a beige sofa, and a black bookcase with red vases and books. Sunlight streams through a window with red curtains.

A modern living space with a dark ottoman topped with a patterned cushion. Nearby is a bookshelf displaying books, decorative items, and a lamp on top. Above, a black-and-white framed motorcycle photo hangs on the gray wall. Steps lead upward on the left.

A metal sign spelling "wine" is mounted on a wall above a kitchen countertop. The counter holds decorative bottles, a clear jar filled with wine corks, and a wine bottle. A faucet is visible in the foreground.

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