Lots of you have asked me about these fake wood floors…so I’ll tell you what I did. My friend, Caroline, did her kitchen and she is where I got the inspiration. They look real and unless you get down on all fours and sniff for the wood smell…it’s really hard to tell. Anyway, I bought them at Lowes Home Improvement. Made by Novalis and come in 4 different colors. Mine are Golden Oak. They are vinyl stick and peel planks. The directions are on the box…of how to lay them. Here are some other examples and comments from those who’ve used them.
I bought 8 boxes according to the measurements on the box, but only needed 7 boxes and a few extra planks that they also sell individually. You can also buy one of each color, take them home and live with them to see which one you like best.
First go to the garage and get your husband’s softball knee-pads…hockey will do! If none are to be found…FIND SOME! Your knees will thank you in the morning. I’m not even joking about this step! Do not start until you have some cushion on those patella’s!
You must first prep your floor by mopping it clean and then removing any residue with water and let it dry. Then roll the self-stick tile primer on and let it dry. You don’t need much…the consistency is like milk. I used about 1/2 a bottle for my kitchen. Let it dry. I used my rotary cutter to score/cut the planks and they just pop in half. My measuring tape and yardstick were also very helpful. I used scissors for the tricky spots around door frames.
Measure your room and start laying planks in the middle FIRST. I started on one side of the island. If you start on a wall…your wall may be slightly crooked and that will jack up the rest of it and it could look all catywampus and sideways by the time you finish. Stagger your planks. Again there are examples of how to do this on the box. And MEASURE, MEASURE, MEASURE. When you get to edges…it can get tricky, so measure. Did I say MEASURE? Also, I asked a guy at Lowes’ about a sealer to go over the top and he said there was not one. If your floor is properly prepared and the tiles layed tightly, you’ll be good! Although, someone left a comment that she did this in her bathroom…and the tiles came up. I dunno? I probably won’t do it in my kid’s bathroom beacuse I think they take bath’s on the outside of the tub…water everywhere.
This was the last unfinished corner. I am proud to say that my floor is completely done as of today. “They” recommend you take off baseboards or molding, but who has time for that. You know who “they” are. “They” didn’t have their kitchen furniture in the living room for 3 days…so of course “they” has all the time in the world to take off their baseboards. Caroline didn’t do it and her’s looked great. I did lift that little yucky gold strip with my hammer to get the plank under and then hammer it back down. My husband was against this for a long time. This was our conversation in the process:
husband: “Wow, this is really going to look good!”
me: (on my knees) “uh-huh”
husband: “I should have let you do this a long time ago!”
me: (trying not to be smug) “uh-huh”
husband: (admitting the truth we’ve always known) “you’re always right about everything!”
me: (still on my knees) “uh-huh”
Hope this helps, please feel free to email me any questions. Go here to see my finished fake hardwoods along with fake beadboard.
The floors look great! I am blessed with hardwoods in the house already, so thankfully, I won’t have to try this alone!!! My hubby would have a fit! Quite proud of you, chickadee!I am struggling a bit with the slipcover tutorial. Not sure about the pic of the inside of the chair–the cuts and pinning, etc. If you have any expert advice, please feel free to email me at scrunnermom@gmail.com. I would so greatly appreciate it!!!Have a great day!Blessings,Susan
Thank you so much for the info. Our existing vinyl flooring is coming apart so I think we will have to remove it before laying down another floor. Off to see where I can find money in the budget to get a new wood floor for the kitchen!
O.K. I am in the business and haven’t seen this! Very cool… I can see this in my basement whenever we get around to finishing the main rooms. You did a great job and my favorite part is the conversation with your husband, sounds a lot like ours every time “I” finish a project! Awesome job…I’ll be back to visit soon.~Misti
I am seriously showing my hubby this post…..Need to cover up our vinyl!!
That looks fabulous, great job! My husband and I have that same conversation every time I get the idea to “redo” something! LOL
I can’t believe those are fake wood floors!! Amazing job 🙂I think I’ll use those in the basement laundry at the new house. Right now it’s just cement.rue
Thanks for the know-how. Looks great! I just may have to try this.
They look great! Hoe did you do the faux beadboard??
this is so cool! I understand the husband thing. I purchased some duck cloth from Walmart. You know to make the slipcovers like yours. My husband was less than thrilled because of the cost. He really didn’t think I could do it.Well, when I did get the chair done…he was really happy with it. Told me to go out and get a bolt for the couch!!! LOL!!! I have been wanting to get a new kitchen floor. I wanted wood too. Maybe I’ll do this. He might help too! LOL! We will see!Thanks for the tutorials!Susan
I love it!!
Great job! They look fantastic. I’m going to have to check those out. Love the conversation with your husband. Hilarious.
You have to be so excited! The floor turned out GREAT!!!!!Yea for you!!!!LuLu
The floor looks gorgeous! I can’t believe how easy that looks. And you just lay it over your linoleum? I SO need to talk my hubby into this! I’m off to find me some knee pads! lol
Wow amazing!!! The floor is wonderful. So nice to find your blog!
I am sooo envious! I sooooo want hardwood floors!
Hats off to you! Please move to my town and be my friend. 🙂
Your new floors look great!
You did a great job! Such a big difference for not a ton of money!
Get out!! That is so cool, and it looks real to me. I will be looking for some of that.~Heather
I love the way the floors turned out! You did such a great job 🙂-meg
Freak girl, they look great!
LOVE THE KNEE PADS!!!!!!!LLLLLOOOOOLLLLLLCan’t wait to meetyou at Blissdom09!
I love it! I can’t wait for my husband to get home so I can show him.
I’m so glad that Nester linked to you! After reading this post, I’m sold on fake wood floors. I want to do my basement floors with this stuff. Thanks for sharing yours and for linking to the message board that discussed the product!Have a wonderful weekend!
Hi Nice Blog . I don’t really know a lot about < HREF="http://www.innerbody.com/image/skel16.html" REL="nofollow">Knee<> or art, but that’s just my 2 cents. Really great job though, Krudman! Keep up the good work!
Oh yeah, Great article and what a very unique art. Thank you for sharing and I hope that you will post more.
Ok…I am a little late on the comment. I just found your amazing blog!!
Question: Did you have to remove the quarter round baseboard before installing the wood floor? How did you get the baseboards to work with the elevated height of the wood floor?
Thanks-
Beachbrights@gmail.com
Found you over at TCB. This is such a genius idea! It turned out just gorgeous!
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It's so fun to see someone else with vinyl floor planks! We just did ours and I LOVE IT!
here are ours:
http://queen-of-the-house.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-floors-revealed.html
i can't wait to try a slipcover! 🙂
Yay! I think this is the solution to the pink tile in our foyer and pink carpet in our basement guestroom (coutesy of the original owner!) BTW- this may be a stupid question, but when you start in the center, how do you make sure your first row is level/straight so that you won't do the rest of the room on a slight diagonal?
Thanks so much for sharing this project! We just finished putting down the same flooring in our basement man cave/guestroom and I linked back to this postde:
http://bibbidi-bobbidi-beautiful.blogspot.com/2010/09/our-faux-wood-floor.html
The fake wood floors indeed looked so real and they can really make a big difference in beautifying your home. When me and my husband first moved into our home, we had wooden floors all over our house and it rally looked so great. Not until we had kids running around the house and making such a mess, I find it hard to clean our wooden floors easily. That's why we went to a floor shop in Brandon, tile floors are the ones that we used to replace the wooden floors. Ceramic tile(s) (Tampa) in our home made it easier for me to clean my kids' mess.
We have these same floors they do look great but I had issues with the glue seeping through had to go over them alot with a damp rag to get it off then it has seeped up again and some are lifting we followed directions exactly 🙁
I can see this in my basement whenever we get around to finishing the main rooms.
Flooring company
Love the idea of the fake wook floors but after two years do they still look as good?
Thanks for sharing this trick!
Love the idea :)))
I used the darkest in my guest bathroom, hallway, and girl's bedroom. This stuff is amazing! And of course my husband is one who groans everytime I want to do something, but after kicking him out midprocess (you know because they always just get in the way;) I spent about 2 1/2 hours on everything! Very easy to cut. The only thing is to make sure you have every single debris off he floor. We overlooked one staple on the subfloor and peice came back up there, but no problems anywhere else. The pieces are very sticky alone, but we used a big tub of flooring glue which actually works as a sealer between the pieces to make it waterproof. Mine were finished a year ago and the only thing I can notice is that over time the pieces expand and shrink up with the heat/cold, as with laminate floor. My advice, take it very slow and make sure your pieces are very tight to one another. The contractor said that you can take colored wood putty and fill in any gaps like this but it wasn't that bad so I didn't. It looks 100x better than the laminate wood floor we installed in the kitchen!