DIY bamboo flooring installation for beginners

As I write this blog post, I’m sitting in my new home office surrounded by freshly painted walls and brand new bamboo flooring. This is the first big DIY project that my Fix-It Farmer and I have tackled in a long, long while. And it wasn’t even on my radar less than a month ago.

My new office/daughter’s room when she visits with the lovely bamboo hand-scraped flooring and Sea Salt paint. I still need to hang art and curtains. My DIY Rule #1: There’s always more to be done.

Most of my DIY scheming and scouting for the last few YEARS focused on our master bathroom. I have the no-longer-in-stock tile samples to prove it. But Shawn came up with a compelling idea of installing new flooring in one of the upstairs bedrooms and turning it into my office.

My hubby wanted to get my office out of the dining room – removing the desk, computer and associated clutter – and give me a quiet place to write blog posts, freelance stories, the great American novel, whatever… We keep a bed in the room for when one of our daughters visits, but most of the time it will be my domain.

Shawn wanted to complete the project in less than two weeks. The forcing function was hosting a party. This method works well for getting me to clean house, so it also could be good incentive to DIY. I’d spent a little time in the last year looking at flooring options for the master bedroom, which I wanted to tackle soon after the bath. Bamboo engineered flooring stood out for its durability and price. Its eco friendly nature also weighed in its favor.

My office would be a good warm-up before the master bedroom and give us a chance to learn in a smaller space that isn’t used as much. I settled on a click-and-lock strand woven engineered bamboo product from Lowes: Natural Floors by USFloors in Vintage Antique, a medium brown hand-scraped plank that I hope will wear well. Strand woven bamboo rates a 5000 on the Janka hardness scale as one of the strongest materials out there.

Buy your flooring at least four days before installation and let it sit around the inside of your house so it acclimates to the humidity and temperature. Look at the instructions and open up the boxes, if required, to let your flooring breathe. I forgot to do this step early on, but the prep work took long enough that it didn’t matter.

The prep work

I don’t think I’ve ever done a job where the prep work didn’t take longer than I expected. In this case, it took a lot longer. I decided to repaint the room before doing the flooring. I chose Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt, a gray-blue that I LOVE. My college-age daughter spent a good chunk of her spring break helping me paint what will be her room when she visits.

We also had to rip out the once off-white carpet, disintegrating pad and tacking strips. Think

So satisfying, yet gross to remove ancient stained carpet and disintegrating padding.

about a 23-year-old carpet in a room that for many years hosted two young occupants. All the mystery spills and dirt created by toddlers, creative kids, artsy teens and tweens. That carpet wore battle scars. And I couldn’t wait to get it out of my house.

Shawn removed all the baseboards, which I repainted in the garage. He also tapped down or replaced any wayward nails, sanded and put floor patching/leveling compound in several uneven spots. The goal is to get the floor clean and level within an eighth of an inch over ten feet.

Your floating bamboo flooring needs breathing room called an expansion gap (check you instructions for the width) so it can expand and contract with temperature changes. For this reason, Shawn carved out the bottom of three door frames: the main door and two closet doors. He did this job three times to get the right height. Even using a special saw created for this purpose is still a beat down.

Expect to spend some time leveling and cleaning your floor.

Before, during and after all this we swept and vacuumed and swept and vacuumed some more.

Next we put down underlayment. I used a recycled felt with a built-in moisture barrier that cost me 40 cents a square foot at Floor and Decor. It comes with an adhesive strip attached so you don’t need additional tape. The downside is it comes in 100 square-foot rolls and I needed 160 square feet. Oh well, the cost of DIY.

Getting the underlayment laid out took some time. You want to leave excess material on each end. Some instructions say to remove the extra after the flooring is installed. We found the extra got in the way of the spacers used to preserve the expansion gap. I ended up cutting the extra right at the bottom of the drywall before we got too far in clicking together rows of planks.

Installation

For the actual installation of the bamboo flooring, we used a compound miter saw (chop saw) for 90 percent of the cuts, a scroll saw for two or three intricate cuts around the closet door frames, a table saw to trim the first and last row, work gloves, measuring tape, speed square, pencils, wood glue, paintable caulk, caulking gun and the following materials:

• $400 for 160+ square feet of bamboo engineered click-and-lock
• $90 for underlayment
• $30 for threshhold (with enough left over to do another doorway)
• $25 for patch and level compound
• $20 for installation kit (includes tapping block, pull bar and spacers)
• $20 for special saw to remove chunks of door frame at floor level
• $17 for dead blow hammer (scary name, fun tool to tap planks into place)
• $10 for knee pads (don’t forget these because you spend a lot of time on your knees)
• $2 for ibuprofen (because you spend a lot of time hunched over on your knees)

Here are the main tools of the job (left to right): dead blow hammer, tapping block, pull bar, hand saw for bottom of door frame, spacers and the all important knee pads.

We spent just over $600 on the floor, but we also had the power tools we needed like the chop saw and the scroll saw. You could rent or borrow a chop saw, if you don’t own one. Tricky cuts could be made with a small hand saw instead of a scroll saw but would take more time.

The first few rows took some time to install as we figured out the method. Measure, measure, measure to figure out the width of the first and last rows.

Your bamboo flooring should run perpendicular to the floor joists and/or parallel with an exterior wall. The first and last row may need to be cut to fit the space. We cut about a third of the width of the plank off the first row, leaving us with a third for the last row. Set your spacers for the expansion gap in the corner at the beginning of the row and along the wall parallel to the row. Shawn used little blocks of wood he cut from strips of scrap wood, and we started stapling them into the wall at the beginning of a new row.

Our run, not counting the closet, was three and two-thirds planks in each row. Because you want to stagger your joints, we ended up starting on the far left with a full board (minus the width we determined) and ending with two-thirds of a plank. The second row started and ended with a third of a board. The third row we began with a full plank at far right wall so we ended in two-thirds of a plank below the third of a board.

Most instructions say to create a random pattern, staggering the joints. We used a set pattern staggering the joints to reduce waste. And boy did we reduce waste! We used almost every scrap we had, fitting small pieces like a jigsaw puzzle to finish out the last few rows at either end of the long, narrow closet.

For the last row, we ran a bead of wood glue along the edge of the preceding tongue because that row didn’t have as much holding it down. Just keep a damp rag handy to wipe away any glue that seeps out.

Then Shawn removed the spacers and re-installed the baseboards, while I ran the caulk gun. I used spackle to fill the nail holes in the baseboards, wiping away the excess with a damp rag.

Finally finished!

Note the space below the door frames to allow the floor to “float.”

We did the job in about ten days, working lots of weekend hours and several nights during the week in between. I’m going to estimate about 30 hours total, not including supply runs. Want to guess the over/under on trips to the store? I went to Lowes six times, Sherwin-Williams twice, Floor and Decor twice, Home Depot once and Ace Hardware once in less than two weeks. The installation of the wood planks took maybe ten hours. The prep took the most time at about 18 hours and the post work just two hours.

I’m going to be optimistic and say we could do our master bedroom in less time, even though it’s about 60 percent larger. The first time you do something, you spend a lot of time figuring things out.

How difficult was tackling bamboo flooring installation ourselves? It was very doable for a couple of DIYers. But I’m not gonna lie. There were times when we exchanged a heated word or two. I proclaimed it a success when my Fix-It Farmer said it inspired him to tackle more projects.

But he also made a point of telling any daughter within earshot that installing a floor together would be “good premarital counseling” to see if you’re well matched. Ever the optimist, I’m going to say he thought we scored passing marks. After all, we’ve been married for more than 30 years, and this was not our first redo rodeo.