Okay, so I decided to tackle a new flooring project in my living room. I went with this “keel dancing lvl larch assembled wooden flooring” thing. Honestly, I picked it because the name sounded kinda cool, and the sample in the store looked pretty decent.

First things first, I had to rip out the old nasty carpet. That was a workout in itself! Pulling up the carpet, the padding, and all those little tack strips along the edges. It took a whole afternoon, and my back was definitely feeling it.

Prepping the Subfloor

Once the carpet was gone, I had a bare concrete subfloor. It wasn’t perfectly level, which is where the “lvl” part of the flooring name comes in, I guess (it’s some kind of leveling thing). I used a big level and found some low spots. I mixed up some self-leveling compound – it’s like a thin, runny concrete – and poured it into those dips. It took a couple of days to fully dry and harden, but it made a huge difference.

• Cleaned the concrete thoroughly – vacuumed like crazy!
• Checked for any cracks or major imperfections and filled them with concrete patch.

Laying the Flooring

The flooring itself came in these long planks. I laid down thin foam underlayment. The underlayment goes down first.

Then, it was time for the actual flooring. The “keel dancing” part, I think, refers to the way the planks connect. They have this tongue-and-groove system, and you basically slide and lock them together. It wasn’t super easy at first – I had to bang on them a bit with a rubber mallet and a tapping block (a little piece of scrap wood to protect the edges) to get them to fully engage.

It get the hang of it after a few rows. The most important thing I learned: stagger the seams! You don’t want all the ends of the planks to line up; it looks weird and isn’t as strong. So, I cut some planks to different lengths to make sure the seams were all over the place.

Finishing Touches

Around the edges of the room, I left a small gap – maybe a quarter of an inch – for expansion and contraction. The wood will move a little with changes in temperature and humidity, so you need that gap. I covered it up later with some quarter-round molding, which I nailed to the baseboards (not to the floor itself!).

After all the planks were down, I gave the whole floor a good sweep and then wiped it down with a damp cloth. It looked pretty darn good, if I do say so myself! It’s way better than that old carpet, and the room feels totally different now.

It was a lot of work, but definitely worth it. And hey, I learned a new skill – now I can say I’ve installed “keel dancing lvl larch assembled wooden flooring”! Don’t ask me what all those words mean, though. It just looks nice!