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Story
We inherited a lot of carpeted areas when we bought our house. The carpet is extremely good, durable and thick, but it does not last forever. Carpets also collect dust and other allergenic things, so we have been gradually replacing them over the years. Some replacements have been out of necessity (water damage), convenience (tired of cleaning them) or health reasons (rugs in bathrooms are a bad idea). Our original plan was to replace them with ceramic tiles, but hardwood floors in some places is also considered.
When we had our air conditioner replaced, some moldy water from the old unit was spilled on the rug in our master bedroom closet. The attic access is through the closet and the old unit was brought down through the ceiling stairs not so carefully. We tried to clean it, but a bad odor persisted. Given mold is a thing to get rid of ASAP and our penchant for removing rugs, we decided to tear up the carpet.
We found that the concrete slab floor underneath was painted. This was a problem if we wanted to tile the floor, since you need to scour the paint off if you want the tiles to adhere to the slab. The closet is too small and has too many small, confined areas to use a scouring machine, so it was likely a labor intensive job. Thus, we decided on a floating hardwood floor since it did not need to adhere to the concrete slab.
There was also an ulterior motive for this project. We had been remodeling our master bathroom and also debating whether to use tile or a hardwood floor. This project in the closet would serve as a possible prototype to see whether we could do it ourselves and if we liked the final product. See the Master Bathroom Remodeling Page.
Wood Selection
Staging area for planks.
Opened boxes of wood planks.
We went with what they call an "engineered hardwood" floor. In this context, "engineered" means plywood. Regular hardwood floors are solid wood and therefore more subject to warping due to temperature and humidity. Plywood is much more stable and is a better choice when installing over a concrete slab which is a source of moisture. The top layer of the plywood planks is real wood.
Using some internet research and Consumer Reports as a guide, we found a quality brand and then selected from the wood species they offered. We wanted to keep it a light color so we went with white maple. At 90 sq. ft., we would need four boxes.
Painting Wall
A minor subplot was us removing the wallpaper from one of the walls in the closet. A pain to remove, but the wallpaper was pretty dated and not appealing to us. To avoid paint pills on a new floor, we wanted to tackle that project first.
Peek at the old wallpaper.
After wallpaper removal.
Mirror masked off.
Preparing Floor
The floor needs to be somewhat level when adding a floating hardwood floor since it will otherwise have low spots that deform when you step on the,. Flatness of 3/16" over a ten foot spans is recommended. We measured this and found a few low spots. It would be a major effort to level the floor and it was not that far off the recommendations, so we left it as is. A minor regret since we did end up with one area that you can feel flex when you step on it. Not terrible, but not ideal.
Raw slab floor (view southwest).
Raw slab floor (clothes area).
Raw slab floor (view southeast).
Cutting trim for plank clearance.
We needed to cut the bottoms off the floor jams since the hardwood planks would have to sit under them. Doing this with a miter saw wound up being a big inspiration for my later buying an oscillating multi-tool. That tool would have made a much quicker and better job of this.
Vapor Barrier
Concrete is very porous and absorbs a lot of moisture and that is bad for wood: warping, molding and/or decaying. Thus, we needed to install a vapor barrier to prevent the moisture in the concrete from making its way into the wood. "Vapor Barrier" is a fancy word for "a piece of plastic". It does need to be of a certain minimum thickness, you have to be extra careful around the seams using 6 inch overlaps and it needs special tape to seal up the seams.
Vapor barrier spread out.
Trimming vapor barrier
Special vapor barrier tape.
Vapor barrier (view southeast).
Vapor barrier (view southwest).
Vapor barrier (view south)
Padding
To absorb some of the shock, dampen noise, insulate and make a more comfortable experience, a padding is installed under the hardwood planks. All the same reasons carpet padding is used.
Padding with support cutouts.
First row of padding.
First row of padding (view north).
Padding in place (view north).
Padding in place (view southeast).
Padding in place (view west).
Plank Layout
There is an important layout issue that requires planning. If you just start laying the row of boards down from one to another, you can get to the last row and find you need a thin sliver of a board to fill the remaining space. Having a very thin board is both visually unappealing as well and not having the best structural integrity. Therefore, before you lay down the first row, you need to know how thick the last row will need be. If it is too small, then you are better off ripping down the first board to be thinner, thereby requiring the last row to be thicker. Splitting the difference is ideal where the first row is as wide as the last row.
This first/last row board planning is not too complicated if the room is a wide open rectangle. However, there are many obstacle in the closet to contend with due to the shelf and cabinet supports. This means that the "too thin" row issue comes up every time there is an area that will require cutting a board lengthwise. You do not want that cut to leave just a sliver of wood in these areas for all the same reasons previously mentioned.
Floor dimensions.
To plan around potential "too thin" problems, I used the Blender modeling software to plan out the best row alignment that resulted in having no thin board areas. I layered a grid of the board rows over the precisely modeled shape of the closet and then moved the grid left and right to find where each row edge lined up. This would then tell me how thick I should make the first row. To do this meant measuring the room and obstacles fairly precisely.
Plank Installation
The product we chose for this has an interlocking mechanism that allows the boards to snap into place. This meant we did not need to use glue. However, there were a few areas where it helped to have a little extra integrity around the edges that we did put some glue on. You can see those areas from the painters tape we used to hold things in place while the glue dried.
First plank in place.
First few plank rows (view west).
Plank install nearing completion.
Partially installed (view west).
Partially installed (view southeast).
Planks installed (view north).
Planks installed (view west).
Planks installed (view southeast).
Planks installed (view southwest).
Closeup of gap around drawer support.
Gap closeup by clothes hanger support.
Molding and Final Views
We were generous with the vapor barrier size since we knew we could always cut it down and now with the molding needing to be put in place it was time to do that.
Molding installed (view southeast).
Molding installed (view west).
Molding installed (clothes area).
Molding (northwest corner).
Molding installed (view north).
Postscript
We did eventually use this same process for our master bathroom, though selected a different wood species. For more details see the Bathroom Hardwood Floor Page.