As I mentioned before we decided to replace the carpet in the new house. It was worn in most of the house, and so we decided to do it now before all the furniture got in. Makes the most sense after all.
We went with Costco and they subcontract out to a local place in the area. We will be getting a nice bonus check from Costco for some of the cost back so that made it an extra deal.
Well, the job was to be done while “B” was in Idaho last week. She would let the crews in and then check it all out before she headed back to AZ at the end of last week. Well, the carpet came out with no issues (“B” did say there was a bit of cursing from some of them in one room when they were trying to take the carpet out). Then the carpet went in apparently well (we didn’t hear of any issues) to the bedrooms and the upstairs main room (is that the family or living room?). The rest of the basement was to get LVP (Luxury Vinyl Planks). It looks like wood, but is vinyl. It is better in a basement due to moisture levels. We liked the way it looked, and it was cheaper than doing real wood or engineered wood.
The crew doing that job showed up Friday to put it in and that is when I got a call from my Costco contact. He said, “The floor in the basement is really bad.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
Roger – “The floor isn’t level at all. It is wavy. You can’t put the LVP down on it. It won’t work correctly.”
Me – “So…”
Roger – “I’ll send you pictures so you can see. But the options are to 1. scrap the LVP option and do carpet. 2. Fill the areas with concrete to try and help level things. Or 3. use self-leveling concrete on the entire floor.” Of course option 3 was the best and most expensive. I talked to the crew boss, and owner of company Gary, and he felt that option 3 was the best hands down, but it would be $4500 for materials and labor. I quickly got ahold of “B” and we decided we needed it done right. So, I called Gary back and told him to go ahead and do that.
Here are picture of how UNLEVEL the floor in the basement was:
Of course that meant the job wouldn’t be done on Friday. Gary had to spend the rest of Friday scraping and preparing the floor of the concrete. Then Monday of this week he was back and poured the concrete – check out these pictures:
And the is has to dry for 24 hours minumum so that meant Wednesday was the earliest he could get back to work on the floor. Wednesday morning he called and asked us in what orientation we wanted the planks installed. That was very nice of him. We agreed on an orientation and he went to work.
And here are the pictures I got for the finished floor.
We all think it looks really good. The carpet / LVP transition looks nice. I think this will be a great investment for the house. I will have some work to do with cleaning up the baseboards and I think maybe the wall in a few places. I hope it isn’t too bad, and that I can easily get it repainted and fixed.
That does look good!
Do you have a laundry chute?
No laundry chute. The laundry is on the first floor. So, no need. The little “hole” you see in the wall is to the under stairs storage area. it is finished and has carpet. It is more like a little sitting area for a kid. We think it might get used by one of ours.
We used LVP for our remodel and they had to do some leveling too. Not as much as you, but still we wanted it done correctly so the flooring will last.
We are impressed. I think it was a good choice, and I am glad we spent the money to get it done right.