How to Install Vinyl Flooring: The Only Guide You Need

Would you like to make it look like you have hardwood flooring installed throughout your home without paying hardwood flooring prices? Consider going with luxury vinyl flooring instead.

Luxury vinyl flooring looks just like hardwood flooring and is very durable. But it won’t cost anywhere near the $5,000 that you can expect to pay for just 200 square feet of hardwood flooring.

Luxury vinyl flooring is also very easy to install on your own if you want to take that approach to put it into place to save more money. You can learn how to install vinyl flooring in no time and start running it throughout your home on your own.

If you’re interested in installing vinyl flooring, you should start by picking out the flooring that you want and buying it. From there, work your way through the following steps to complete your installation.

Begin by Gathering the Right Tools and Materials to Install Vinyl Flooring

As we just mentioned, installing vinyl flooring is easy compared to installing some other types of flooring. But this type of flooring will require the use of certain tools and materials. Make sure you have them on hand at the start of your installation.

Outside of your vinyl plank flooring itself, you’re also going to need these tools and materials to get the installation job done:

• Level
• Drill
• Measuring tape
• Oscillating saw
• Table saw
• Utility knife
• Jigsaw
• Square
• Rubber mallet

You can spend all the time you want trying to learn how to install vinyl flooring. But it’s not going to do you much good if you don’t have all these things when you’re getting ready to start your installation.

Prepare Your Subfloor for Vinyl Flooring Installation

Prior to installing vinyl flooring, you’ll obviously need to rip up whatever flooring was in place before. Whether you’re replacing carpeting or an old linoleum floor, you’ll want to get it up and get it out before you begin bringing your vinyl flooring supplies in.

You’ll also want to prepare your subfloor for vinyl flooring installation. To do this, you’ll need to vacuum your subfloor, make sure it’s level (use a leveling compound, if necessary), and address any potential issues with it.

The last thing you want to do is spend time and money installing vinyl flooring only to have problems with your subfloor pop up later and force you to rip the flooring back up.

Remove Baseboards, Trims, Casings, and Anything Else That Might Hinder Installation

Are there baseboards, trims, casings, or anything else along the outside of the room in which you’re installing vinyl flooring that might slow you down? You’re going to need to remove all of them so that they don’t get in your way.

You’ll want to replace all of these things later anyway. Removing them will provide you with a blank slate and allow you to officially get your vinyl flooring installation underway.

Find the Best Place to Run Your First Row of Vinyl Flooring

When installing vinyl flooring—or any kind of flooring, for that matter—you might not know where exactly to start. You might also think that it doesn’t matter where you start since, in theory, all your flooring is going to look the same.

But when it comes to vinyl flooring, you always want to start along the longest exterior wall in a room. That’s going to be the wall that most people focus on when they walk into a room, so you want your vinyl plank flooring along that wall to be perfect.

Lay down your first row of flooring using planks that are different sizes and then use a table saw to remove the tongue from the portions of the planks that are going to rest up against your wall. Each of your planks should be at least 6 inches long, and you should leave 1/4-inch of space between your planks and the walls so that they’re able to expand and contract as necessary.

Once you have the planks that will make up your first row of vinyl flooring down, connect them by using the tongue-and-groove designs on the ends of each of them. By applying some light pressure to the planks, they should click right together. You can also use a rubber mallet to make sure they’re locked tight if you feel like you need to do it.

Run Your Second Row of Vinyl Flooring and Connect It to Your First One

After you’re done putting down your first row of vinyl flooring, step back and make sure that it looks the way you want it to. If it doesn’t, the rest of your vinyl flooring isn’t going to go down easy.

As long as the first row looks the way it should, you can then start on your second row. Cut each of your planks down to your desired size and lay them out next to your first row. Doing this will allow you to connect your second row to your first row once your planks are all in place.

Continue to Create New Rows of Vinyl Flooring

When you finish up with your second row of vinyl flooring, step back again and look at your work. Your new vinyl floor should be starting to come together nicely.

The key will be to continue to create new rows of vinyl flooring with planks of all different sizes before connecting them to the previous row of planks. You can pull out your jigsaw to cut any planks that need to be trimmed to fit around any obstacles located throughout your room.

Install Trim Around the Perimeter of Your Room and Add Transition Strips to Doorways

It might take you some time to fully grasp how to install vinyl flooring. But once you do, you’ll start to move pretty fast. It won’t be long before you have all your vinyl flooring laid down and connected.

When that’s done, you can install new trim around the perimeter of your room and add transition strips to doorways. It’ll help bring your vinyl flooring installation project to an end and leave you with flooring that looks fantastic.

You Can Get the Hang of How to Install Vinyl Flooring in No Time

When you first start figuring out how to install vinyl flooring, it can be frustrating. You might wonder why people said it would be so “easy.”

But after your first couple of rows, it’ll all click and make sense to you. You’ll begin to enjoy laying vinyl flooring more and will be proud of your finished product when you wrap things up.

Want to find out more about DIY while you’re at home? Read through the articles on our blog to get additional information on it.