Alright folks, today’s project was trying out this pad dancing technique on some soft maple assembled flooring I picked up. Gotta say, it was… an experience. Here’s how it all went down.

Getting Started & Prepping the Floor

First thing was clearing out the whole room. That meant hauling furniture out, yanking up the old, nasty carpet, and sweeping like crazy. Found a pretty uneven concrete slab hiding underneath – not ideal. Grabbed some self-leveling compound from the store, mixed it up according to the stupid little directions on the bag, poured it, and crossed my fingers. Took a whole day to cure properly.

Once that dried rock hard, I rolled out the foam underlayment across the entire floor. Got down on my hands and knees, unrolling it foot by foot, making sure it laid flat without any stupid bubbles or wrinkles. Taped the seams together with that strong underlayment tape. It’s sticky stuff – ended up with it stuck to my fingers more than once.

Time for the Actual Flooring

Opened up the boxes of the soft maple planks. Looked nice, felt solid. Unpacked everything and let the boards sit in the room for a couple of days just like they said, letting the wood get used to the room’s vibe – temperature and humidity-wise. Didn’t wanna risk any wild shrinking or expanding later.

Started planning the layout. Measured the room width divided by the plank width to see where I’d end up. Didn’t want no skinny little slice at the end; figured out needed nearly a full plank width to start with to avoid that mess. Used my chalk line to snap a nice, straight starting guide across the room.

The Pad Dancing… Oh Boy.

This is where things got… different. Instead of whacking boards with a mallet and tapping block, this pad system has these sticky foam pads attached. You set one plank down at an angle, fitting the tongue into the groove of the previous one. Then, you gotta step on this pad attached to the board – carefully now – kinda rocking your weight onto it to push the joint down and click it tight. Like a weird, careful little shuffle. Hence the “dancing” bit.

First few rows were a pain. Trying to hold the board at the right angle while stepping just so on the pad without kicking the board out of whack? Yeah, not graceful. Ended up on the floor a couple times adjusting before getting the hang of it. The locking mech is inside the pad you step on – felt weird trusting it.

Challenges Faced:

• Getting that initial row perfectly straight against the guide line – took checking with the level and a string like a dozen times.
• Planks near the walls were brutal. Had to wrestle the last piece into place, sometimes manually pulling up a little on the adjacent board’s pad with my hand while stepping on the new one. Banged my knuckles on the baseboard.
• Doorways needed notching. My jigsaw and I became best frenemies. Measured twice (hopefully!), cut once. Mostly.
• Keeping the spacing consistent at the end joints between rows required eyeballing constantly. Had to pull back and re-step a few planks that looked wonky.

Wrapping It Up

The pad dance worked, surprisingly. Once I got the rhythm down, clicking the long sides became smoother. Stepping at an angle along the edge did seem to pull the boards together snugly. Finished installing the whole mess. Installed the baseboards to hide the ugly gaps at the edges – that felt good.

Final Thoughts: Honestly? The pad dance system is quieter than hammering away all day, which my neighbors probably appreciated. It’s clever. But it’s physically demanding! It’s not magic; you still gotta put muscle into it, just controlled stepping instead of swinging. Did my back no favors crawling around. The soft maple? Looks fantastic now it’s all down. Time will tell how well the joints hold, but for now? Feels solid underfoot. Would I do it again? Maybe… with knee pads.