Installing Easy DIY Flooring in Vintage Trailer

What a difference new flooring has made in Glinda.  I feel like she is gaining more character every day, or maybe I’m just personifying her just a little too much.  Regardless, I am in love with her new look.

We looked at various types of flooring, but were shopping mostly for ease of installation and affordability.  I went to a few big box stores and local flooring stores.  I ended up back at Home Depot purchasing Allure flooring.  This flooring did not require any underlayment.  It could go over wood, linoleum, and a lot of messed up places, which was exactly what we had.

Linoleum covered the entire floor when we picked her up and while a lot of it was actually in good shape, there were places in the rear that were peeling up and were gooey?  These few pieces came up so easily, I thought it would all come up.  Boy was I wrong.  All the rest was on there solid.  This did, however, provide me another opportunity to use my Rockwell Oscillating Sonicrafter.

Applying a scraper blade, we were able to remove the linoleum on the back ledge.  Warning, most older linoleum…especially the 9” squares…contains asbestos.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know that when I first started removing the flooring.  I found out in time to wear gloves, goggles, and a face mask to remove the most of it.  So, please take note if you try this.  It still was not pretty wood flooring when we were done.  Some stuff just WOULD NOT come off.  Other places…well…we gouged the wood a few times.  We also did not want to further expose any potential asbestos so we did not want to remove the rest of the flooring that was well glued.

The Allure flooring we chose was very affordable, especially since we have such a small space to work with.  We only needed to buy two boxes to cover the trailer flooring.  It was also VERY easy to install.  It cuts with a razor knife or a pair of good scissors.  I decided to use a straight edge and the razor knife. We set up the table horses and created our own workbench. Each piece has an adhesive strip extending from top and side and the opposite sides have an adhesive strip under the edge.  When these two edges are layed down together, you get a really strong bond.  I loved that this did not have to be adhered directly to the floor.  It’s thick enough to cover any imperfections underneath and it does not require molding to keep the floor down because you can put it down so close to the edge.
To install, you start in one back corner and work your way across and down.  The rubber mallet was there just to tuck in the edges real close, it’s not required.  Installation recommends you cut your first piece, and then take the leftover to start your next row.

We did this all the way down, across, and up, and down.

Our tricky part was our step ledge fronts.  Not a problem, I cut these pieces all the same size (height of step) and glued these directly to front of step with Loctite Power Grab adhesive.

When the flooring was all laid down, I finished the step edges with MD Building Products Stair Edging in Pewter.  This cut easily with a pair of tin snips.  Nails were included with edging and went directly into the flooring.  Easy peasy and looks gorgeous.

For tight corners, you can use scissors to cut the flooring.  For the dinette table hole, we used a spade bit on the drill and drilled a hole in one piece after measuring carefully.  Woo hoo, it fits.

Added a small threshold and flooring is finished.  Come on in and see. You think I could call this the foyer?

The inside is almost all done!