Okay, so I’ve been wanting to redo my floors for, like, forever. The old carpet was just… gross. I decided to go with this “dancing beech” wooden flooring I saw. It looked so cool, all wavy and interesting. Plus, it had this “cushion” thing underneath, which sounded comfy.

First, I had to rip out that nasty old carpet. Man, that was a workout! And dusty. So much dust. I wore a mask, obviously, but still, dust everywhere.

Prepping the Subfloor

• Cleaned it like crazy. Vacuumed, swept, the whole nine yards.
• Checked for any uneven spots. Found a few dips, so I used some leveling compound to smooth things out. Let that dry overnight.

Then came the underlayment – the “cushion” part. It was this roll of foamy stuff. I just rolled it out across the floor, making sure to overlap the edges a bit. Used some tape to hold it all down. Pretty straightforward.

Laying the Floor

Now for the fun part – the actual wooden flooring! I started in one corner, following the instructions (which, I admit, I skimmed at first, big mistake!). You have to leave a little gap around the edges for expansion. They even included these little spacer things to help with that.

The “dancing beech” pieces were kinda like puzzle pieces. They had these grooves and tongues that clicked together. Sometimes it was easy, sometimes I had to grab a rubber mallet and give them a little thwack to get them to fit. My arms were definitely feeling it by the end of the day.

The hardest part was cutting the pieces to fit around doorways and stuff. I borrowed a jigsaw from my neighbor (thanks, Bob!). My first few cuts were… not pretty. But I got the hang of it eventually. Measure twice, cut once, right?

After all the pieces were down, I installed the baseboards. That really finished it off and hid any of my slightly-less-than-perfect cuts along the walls.

It took me a whole weekend, but it’s finally done! My living room looks completely different. It’s so much brighter and cleaner. And that cushioned underlayment? Totally worth it. It feels so nice to walk on. Now just need to find ways to show off my new floors to my friends!