Replacing the Flooring In Our Bighorn

Upon arriving from down south in mid-May, we moved into our Bighorn fifth wheel. It spent the winter parked on our rv lot in Star Valley, Wyoming, and we had contracted with a person to shovel off the heavy snow. Opening the door, we saw that the linoleum in the kitchen had split but we were pleased to see that there were no leaks from the record snows.

Putting off the onerous job we finally traveled to Idaho Falls and purchased some inexpensive laminate flooring. Next the real work began as we tore off the old flooring. What a job! The linoleum wasn’t bad as it was not glued down, just stapled on the edges and it came off quickly.

However, removing the carpeting turned out to be a nightmare. It had been stapled with two different sized staples and some areas had even been glued. Using a pry bar, a large screwdriver. A hammer, and several other tools I slowly ripped the carpet up and removed every staple, (countless staples).

It took me three days to get the old flooring up but luckily the sub flooring didn’t have any damage. The next step was to install a very thin layer of waterproof material before laying the floating laminate flooring over the top.

I had installed this flooring in our old stick and brick house, and it worked out nice, but the job in the fifth wheel turned into a tough job with many discouraging words, (not normally allowed in Wyoming). The problem was that the flooring we had bought was on sale, and the price reflected in the quality.

As I would lay down a row, everything would come along fine but as I installed the next row the previous planks would develop a gap. What should have been an easy one-day job, became a nightmare as the glue less flooring didn’t live up to its name.

I also had trouble with the edge pieces and the nearest pull bar tool was located one hundred miles away, (also the location of my dentist). After another trip to Idaho Falls we finally finished the flooring and added some throw rugs, (the dog hates the new floor as she slides on the slick surface, but she loves the new throw rugs).

At least the flooring turned out good. Renita had matched the color of the flooring to the oak cabinets nicely and we have received compliments on how nice it looks. It was one of those jobs that saved us a lot of money, perhaps now we can look forward to working on landscaping, put in some cement work and build a pergola, (the cement work will be contracted out but I look forward to building the pergola). Clear skies