After finally getting my hardwood stairs completed, I felt it was time to post my notes so that others do not have to go through all the greif that I did to get my stairs completed. Posting my completed stair pictures to the Toolmonger flickr pool resulted in many emails requesting help on accomplishing the same thing. Unfortunately, there is no single resource for installing Hardwood stairs on the Internet, so here goes…

First, lets get some terminology out of the way:

- Skirtboard: these are the boards that run along the wall, between the stairs and the wall.
- riser: this is the board that sits behind the tread, vertically. (white in the pictures).
- tread: this is where your feet go when you climb stairs
- nosing: this is the rounded over piece of hardwood that gives a nice rounded front to the step.
- stringer: these are the “bones” or backbone of the stairs, the treads are attached to these, as are the risers. Typical stair cases have two or three.

The preparation of the stair case is the most important step, as this sets the platform for everything else that follows. The more time you spend on prepping, the better your stairs will be. In my case, I had carpet over softwood (pine) stair treads with plywood risers. After taking off the carpet, I quickly realized that it was going to be easier to put down new 2×10 treads as the old ones showed their 20 years of abuse. I could have planed down the treads to take out the concave warping, in my situation, I wanted to get my stairs as silent as possible.  $30 of wood later, and I had new stair treads. Now, there is a trick here, so pay attention! No wall is perfect, and you are not going to want any gaps whatsoever, so the first step is to under cut the stair treads to accomodate your skirtboard. In my case, my baseboard was 1/2″ wide so my skirt board will be 1/2″ wide. You will also want to remove the risers at this point. I chose to put mine back on and use them as backing for my MDF risers, so I also cut them so that they could accommodate a skirtboard down each side. Important, Glue and screw the treads in place. This will keep the stairs from squeaking! Pl premium construction adhesive is your new best friend!

The purpose of the skirt board is to give you a flat edge to butt the hardwood planks and nosing up against for a tight fit. You’ll want the skirt board to meet the ends of the stairs at the same height as your baseboard, in my case, my baseboard is 5 1/4″ tall, so it has to meet at the top.

You should be able to drop your skirt board down the sides and nail them in place with finish nails. Use a stud finder and make sure to attach to the studs, depending on the length of your skirt boards, they can be quite heavy. Since my stair case was 12′ long, I was able to get a two 12″ wide 14′ long sheets of MDF at a custom moulding shop. None of the big box home center’s carry extra long plywood, so you’ll have to phone around.

The next step, is to put in the first riser at the bottom of the stairs, you can use brad nails or finish nails to attach it to the stringers. then you need to measure, and put down the correct ammount of flooring, leaving enough room to glue down the nosing to the stair tread. I used construction adhesive, and finish nails to keep it from sliding forward. I then used my collection of heavy networking and programming books to hold it down until the glue had set.

Then you start with the riser, and repeat the same steps for putting down the tread and nosing, and repeat until you reach the top.

You are going to end up with a few minor gaps, this is normal, and why paintable latex caulking was invented! I also use it to fill small nail holes as this saves you from having to sand and paint. I pre-painted all of my parts, and it saves a lot of time, and reduces the risk of ruining your new floor.

Matching the stair to your hardwood is difficult. This is where a good paint/stain store comes in handy. To match mine, I took a sample of flooring, and a peice of nosing to use for testing at the store. Benjamin Moore in Canada is very accomodating, and their staff know their stuff, so its worth the effort. After you get the colour down, the next part is the clear coat, make sure that you buy a clear coating at the same time as the stain, you want to make sure that the two products are compatible.

Please note that this post is still a work in progress, as I remember various aspects of this project, I will refine the post. If you have a question, or a comment, please post a comment below and I will do my best to try and answer in the comments.

He was a crowd hit at the Winter 2008 convocation ceremony. He even wore his “Holmes on Homes” brand cover alls, and steel toed boots undeneth his robe, which is pretty funny.

As you are probably aware, removing your older carpet and replacing it with a new Laminate floor can make quite the difference. I have helped to install many Laminate and hardwood floors, and having recently purchased a house, I’m planning on writing a series of articles on Home Improvement.

Keep Reading Below for my Laminate Floor Installation How to.

Tools Required:

- Laminate Floor Install Kit. (IKEA has a cheap one that works well. Half the price of Home Depot kit).

- A Jigsaw/Sabre Saw is the minimum, a table saw will work well too. You will likely need to rip a few boards to the proper width when you get to the last wall. And you will of course have to cut boards to length when you get to the end of a row. I used a Mitre saw and Jigsaw the most.

- A Rafter Square, big enough to go across your planks. You want to make sure that all of your end cuts are square.

- A Hammer for the beater block in the Ikea kit. This is used to join the short ends of the planks after the long edge has been clipped in.

- A Pencil.

- A Tape Measure.

1. First off, measure your room length wise and width wise to get the square footage, now add 5-10 % depending on your comfort level for scrap and screw ups.

2. Now you need to decide what type of Laminate floor you want to buy. The first choice that you will have to make is whether you want to use a glue together or click together. Most home owners opt for the click flooring because of the ease of install. Commercial installations still favour the glue together installs simply for durability.

3. Now you have to pick the pattern of the floor, and there has also been a fairly new addition to the Laminate flooring world, narrow plank flooring that comes in multiple lengths to give you that hard wood floor look. This is what we opted to install in the example above, it came in three different lengths per box (7 pieces each length). It has a top width of 12.3 CM (not including tongue and groove).

Note: Cheaper floors are going to have a more noticeable pattern. ie: Ikea etc. While the flooring is usually a good quality, it might give you that “over done” look that you see in many laminate flooring installs these days.

4. Underlayment. You will need foam underlay for installation on a sub floor (ie: plywood or osb underneath carpet). If you are installing the floor over concrete, you will need a vapour barrier below the underlay to keep moisture away from the laminate floor. You can get an underlayment+vapour barrier combo for quicker installation.

5. Once you have your flooring its time to move onto the prep work. But first, let your new flooring acclimate in the room that it is to be installed. This will help it to reach the temperature and humidity of the room where it is to be installed. Leave the flooring in its box and shrink wrapped for the manufactures recommended time. Use this time to remove any trim, do it carefully with a flat bar (if you intend on saving it), or goto town if you plan on replacing it.

Note: Since laminate flooring is a floating floor, it requires a gap between it and the walls around the room, this varies by manufacturer, but expect anywhere from 1/8″ to 1/2″ gaps. This might require thicker baseboards to cover the gap.

6. You want to install the laminate floor parallel to the longest wall in the room, or if it is a square room, perpendicular to where daylight enters the room. This helps to hide the seems and make the floor appear to be look realistic.

7. Depending on brand assemble the first three or four rows away from the starting wall. Once you have the first three or four together, put some spacers against the wall and push the flooring against the wall.

Tip: When you get to the end of the row, you may or may not have to make a cut. Save the cut off piece to start the next row with. This will help to minimize waste, and it will help to offset the the pattern. You do not want to have all of your seams lining up across the floor.

8. Have fun laying down the rest of the floor, it should be flowing like clock work at this point.

9. The end wall, is where you may or may not have to rip down the width of the Laminate planks so that they will fit. The best method in my opinion would be to use a table saw to rip the planks down. This will ensure that you get a nice straight cut. I was able to do this using a Jigsaw with a steady hand.

Tip: When cutting, go slow, this will minimize the chipping. I would take a piece and practice, you are going to have waste anyways, and nothing beats testing it out for your self.

When using a Circular Saw, run the saw along the bottom side (Good side down) of the laminate. With a Table Saw or Chop Saw run the Laminate through face up (Good side up). Jigsaw/Sabre saw cut with the Laminate face up (Good Side up). Cut edges can be quite sharp, so watch out!

That should be about it. Enjoy your new Laminate floor. If you have any specific questions, please post a comment below and I will do my best to answer you.

Stay tuned for an article on Installing Laminate floors onto stairs.