Kitchen Floor: Summary

Summary

Just thought it would be useful to add a little summary for those interested in putting down a Pergo floor. Some useful hints, observations, gotchas, etc. I am very happy with the results. It's a breeze to clean, looks nice, and feels nice and solid (despite the fact it is a floating floor). I'd say that it can absolutely be done by a do-it-yourselfer as long as they plan well. It was great to have Dave here to draw upon his expertise - such as an easy way to scribe for the irregular edge. It certainly would have taken long on my own (even just due to how much work it was to pull up the old plywood), and maybe I would have made a couple of mistakes. Overall, I can't think of a mistake one could make that would be utterly disastrous. If you ruin a plank, you can always replace it with another. If you lay down the entire floor and forgot to make allowances for the gap somewhere, it's easy enough to pull up even the whole floor and make the adjustment. I honestly think I could pull up the entire floor in half an hour (with the lion's share of the work being getting started - taking off trim and whatnot).

Well, I happened to save all the receipts from purchasing things for this project. I sort of had it in the back of my mind to figure out how much it ended up costing, and I finally had a chance to add them up. I broke the cost into two categories, Tools (reusable, still worth what I paid) and Materials and Consumables. I had to add the consumables to cover things like jig-saw blades (which are tools, but we went through 4 or 5 of them and they certainly weren't worth anything afterward). Keep in mind that this is for a kitchen which is roughly 10x15 (not counting the cabinets). Also keep in mind that not all the tools are necessary for a particular job, and there is some material leftover (nails, spare Pergo, plywood pieces, etc.). The cost breaks down as follows...

The End (really, I mean it this time)