Laminate & Hardwood Flooring

Home Flooring, Lighting, & Roofing Products

The Complete Book of Flooring

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Flooring The Essential Source Book for Planning Selecting And Restoring Floors

Few other features can coordinate or define interior spaces as well as a carefully chosen floor. Elizabeth Wilhide offers a rich fund of inspiration and sound advice for all floors in your home–modern or period, urban or rural, sumptuous or simple. With its 400 full-colour photographs, 100 how-to illustrations, and directory, “Flooring is a comprehensive and practical volume devoted to this important element of the home. -Packed with practical information about buying, maintaining, restoring, and installing your floor. -A great value paperback at $19.95 (CAN $29.95).

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Packed with ideas for restoring or installing a floor in any room of the house
Elizabeth Wilhide’s Flooring: The Essential Source Book For Planning, Selecting And Restoring Floors is packed with ideas for restoring or installing a floor in any room of the house. Packed with illustrative photos of a range of settings and uses, Flooring discusses wood qualities, finishes, maintenance, and styles ranging from glass and metal floors to traditional wood. From differences between new and old wood to sealing and treating a floor, Flooring offers insights into not just choices, but maintenance after installation.

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Tiling 1 2 3 Home Depot 1 2 3

A comprehensive do-it-yourself tiling book that includes planning, designing, selecting, installing, and repairing.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Nice pictures, lacks details
When I bought this book, I wanted to tile a countertop with porcelain. The book shows many visual examples of elaborate porcelain countertops in the opening pages. It lists the things you must consider when choosing tile for a project. So far, so good.

Sadly, the book only shows how to tile a certain type of red glazed ceramic countertop. Please show me how to do the rustic stone & porcelain countertops you put beautiful pictures of in the first chapter! This was a letdown.

The countertop section needs to be fleshed out about 3x the length that it is now, with many different styles & methods of trimming. Show people how to trim the countertop edges with different types of bullnose, wood, decorative pieces, v-cap trim, etc. Also show how to undermount sinks with quarter rounds of tile. (See Taunton’s book, “Tiling Complete”) These are the things people are thinking of when they want to tile a countertop, and the book just doesn’t deliver.

I didn’t spend much time looking at the floor & wall & ad-hoc project sections of the book. These may be adequate for most people’s needs, but I’m not sure.

2 Stars OK but don’t do a shower pan this way
The book was expensive but I did learn a few things. Be careful about following the instructions on shower pan construction. I’m not an expert, but after reading many books on tiling, I do believe it is important to pre-slope the pan membrane to the drain and to not puncture the membrane on top of the curb with screws (it’s better to do the curb with lath and mortar, not by screwing on cement board). John Bridge’s site is a good all-around source on this subject inhabited by both DIY’ers and real pros.

5 Stars Maybe I Liked It Because I Knew Nothing About Tiling Before Reading This Book?
This is truly an amazing how-to book for tiling. There were so many things I’d not thought of concerning my many upcoming tiling projects. It covers how to demolish, prepare, and tile floors, walls, countertops, patios, fireplaces, and more. This book even tells how to make a shower stall from the ground up and repair a squeaky floor.

4 Stars good
This is a good book for people who want to start tiling or for people who have stated but would like to get more ideas, help or tricks.

2 Stars Could have been a free pamphlet
I bought this book at Home Depot and returned it after a few hours upon finishing it. I could have got the same information from a free pamphlet. They ought to be ashamed. However, there were some nice pictures and I did learn a little bit, but it was just a super easy primer for the real thing. I didn’t buy another book before tiling 900sf in my house. I wish I had bought a better book, as I learned all kinds of tricks “the hard way.” Hint: Swimming after tiling all day can return your back to normal when it doesn’t seem like anything else will help. I am now going to buy John Bridge’s book before my next tiling job.

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Flooring 1 2 3 Expert Advice on Design Installation and Repair Home Depot 1 2 3

This new Home Depot book takes the challenge out of installing and maintaining the most popular styles of flooring, and assures success even for beginners.

The details that do-it-yourselfers want, and the education that buy-it-yourselfers need:

• Design and planning
• Selection and installation
• Care and repair

In-depth information on virtually any flooring project:

• Proper preparation
• Detailed materials lists
• Step-by-step how-to photos

Readers’ favorite features help simplify each project:

• Skill scales
• Buyer’s guides
• Tips from Home Depot pros

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Great Book – A little Optimistic
This is a great book to read before selecting flooring materials as it provides a lot of valuable information on the installation, maintenance and repair of the floors. It also shows how different materials fit together.

There are step by step directions, but no time allowances for band-aids or such. They try to make it look like Joe Homeowner at work but there’s not a beer can or half eaten hot dog in sight. However, there are a lot of shortcuts and very good advice on the things that usually take years to learn. There is also advice for those who need to heed the “Do Not Try This At Home”. Sage advice not to undertake a major floorinig project just before a holiday with a family gathering.

Looking at some of the time allowances I think they are optimistic, even when adjusted for beginners.

Highly recommended.

4 Stars horrible condition
the book itself was very good and informative but the condition that all these home depot books came in were USED/WORN and i purchased them NEW from your site. you shouldn’t pawn off used books as new ones to loyal customers. you people really disappointed me because your merchandise is usually as advertised. really sad.

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Flooring Basics

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars not detailed enough
I was a bit disappointed that this book didn’t go into more details. There’s nothing on how to carpet steps. Also, the section on laminate doesn’t mention the glueless type. This seems to be a common failing of a lot of do-it-yourself type books. Otherwise, I did get some useful information from this book.

5 Stars Great Book!
I loved this book! It’s not a detail “how-to” book but it provides enough general information on what it will take; how much work will be needed to install various types of floor. It helped me to make decision on what type of flooring to do with the budget I have to work with.

I am pretty handy but I had no previous experience installing floors but after reading this book, I learned enough information to refinish a very worned out 30-year old (oak) hardwood floor; installed plywood underlayments and vapor barrier before installing new hardwood floor over concrete slab; installed tile floor directly over concrete slab.

Yes, the information in this book is general but it’s what you will make of it. It’s the best book about flooring in my opinion and I often recommended to clients before making decision on the type of flooring to install.

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Laminate Floors 1 2 3

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars It could have been better
Home Depot’s books normally are very informative and helpful so I was very excited when I found this one on amazon.

It was ok. The book doesn’t help as much as I had hoped for. It didn’t mention the use of a pull bar and a tapping block which are a very big help with the installation of laminate flooring. If you do decide to buy this book also do some research on the internet for additional information on installing laminate flooring.

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