 Hi, I'm Ted from the Chronicles of Home and we're in my basement today where I'm in the process of installing new laminate flooring from lumber liqueurs. And as you probably know, basements tend to be on the dam side, which makes them not great for or hard to floor. Laminate is perfect for a basement and specifically you want to look for a laminate that is appropriate for below grade installation. The great thing is once you choose your laminate it's so easy to install and I'm going to show you how to do it. Alright, first things first, you need to get your materials. So here is a list of everything you're going to need. You will need a vapor barrier to protect your flooring from any moisture that comes up from your concrete basement floor. You're going to need a packet tape and that is to seal the seams in the vapor barrier as it's put it down. If your lamin flooring does not come with an attached pad underneath, you will need a pad underneath the flooring. You'll need the flooring itself and I am looking with a natural accacia flooring from lumber liqueurs. You're going to need a tape measure and a pencil. You need a miter saw to make cuts for the edge pieces of the wood. You need a rubber mallet to help tap the boards into place. And you're also going to need a jigsaw or a sonic tractor or a multi-tool. You can use some things to cut bits of baseboard or around poles to other objects in the basement that might be something other than the straight cutting and giving them a miter saw. Alright, so I'm showing you this corner of the room here because you can see the three layers that go down. This here, the green layer is my vapor barrier and it's just really thick plastic. It comes in a large roll so you roll it out and then you go back to the beginning and start a second row. That's where you can use your pack and tape to seal the edges. You just want to overlap the edges of the vapor barrier to make sure that you know moisture can get through. This red layer here is my pad which goes down on top of the vapor barrier. This one I have has an extra layer of anti-microbial protection which I just like for a baseboard since it tends to be damp. This pad came with adhesive edges, but I didn't want to worry about sealing those edges. The pack can take it or it came with an adhesive edge. Once you have your vapor barrier and your pad here, you're ready for your flooring on the top and I'm going to show you how to do that now. I want to show you that there is a tongue side to the limit and there is a root side to the limit. When you start laying your first board, you want to make sure that the tongue side is up against the wall and the root side is facing out toward you. As you can see here, I opted to remove the baseboard before I started my flooring. My baseboard was a bit damaged and I felt like it was the best move to just remove it. You don't have to do this. Either way, whether you're baseboards there or whether it's not, you need to make sure that you be at the edges a quarter inch to a 3-8th of an inch of space to allow for swelling or expansion when the weather is warmer. I just cut some little scrap pieces of wood here to act as my spacers. When you're ready to let your first board, this is my first board here, the tongue side facing the wall and I set up the spacer at the edge and along the side to make sure that I left that quarter inch to 3-8th of space. I don't want to give you a closer look at how you actually get the flooring to go together. If you start, like I said, tongue side facing the wall, I was working right to left. You don't have to do that. You're left to right as well. I've got the root side facing me now. My new board going in is the tongue side facing the board adjacent to it. This board here on the right is the tongue side facing out and this end has a root side. The very first thing you do, hold it up at about a 45 degree angle and slide it under, slide the tongue under the groove. You want to make sure you push it right tight up against the board next to it. Grab your rubber mallet, give it a few traps and then let go of it and you're going to see there's going to be a little bit of a gap here most of the time. Take your rubber mallet again without touching it, drop it in more and a few spots. What you're going to see is you do that, this opening between the two boards is going to go away and as you snap the tongue into the groove, the board is going to lay flat. You may have it sticking up just a little bit here at the joint. You can tap it flat with your mallet or when you go and get to your next row here. It's going to hold that joint flat and in place. So don't worry too much about that, have a pretty flat bit, it doesn't have to be exact. When you get to the end of your row, chances are your next board is not going to fit exactly in that space. You're definitely going to have to make some cuts to finish the ends of most of the rows. I'm going to measure the space between the wall and the end of my last board and don't forget to leave about three or seven inches of space over here. Also make sure you tuck the right end of your board. I made them the first time. Since I'm laying my four-crumbed right on the left, I need to make sure that I piece of the cuts from the right side of the next board so the tumbling groove will fit together. Make sure you pay attention to that. So once you've laid that last piece in your row, you're going to have a scrap piece left over from the cut, except it is not really scrap. You're going to want to hold onto this as long as it's longer than 12 inches. You're going to start your next row with it. Then minimize its waist. Also make sure that the seams in your flooring are staggered. They're not all lined up. That's the look that you want to use the cut piece remaining from the end of your last row. Start your next row. Then just keep laying the flooring tumbling groove. Once you've finished installing all of your boards, you're ready to finish this project up. The way you do that is by installing a new base board like in my case, or if you do not own a new base board, you need to get some quarter round. I can put a base board board quarter round in the materials that's earlier in this video because what you need is going to depend on whether or not you're going to do a existing base board. First thing you'll need to do is move your space that is going to be over on the edge and then take you to your base board or your quarter round. Instead of right on top of the floor, that edge core board. If you're doing a new base board like I am, you're going to nail it right into the ball. If you're doing quarter round, you're going to put the quarter round right here at the bottom of your base board and nail that into the base board. Then both of these finish the look, but they also hold the boards in place all the way around my room. Once you've finished installing your base board or your quarter round, you are done. You've got to enjoy your beautiful new lemon floor. If in your basement you have a floor that needs replacing board, you just don't like what's down there. Anywhere or place it with something else. I really would recommend lemon. It's such a great choice. Lumber liquid is has a huge selection of lemon flooring and fervor oils, but they have a really nice range of options for below-grade installations like the base. I send to my blog, if you are looking for more, DIY or decorating inspiration. Thank you for joining me today. I hope this video is helpful to you if you are getting ready to install an F4R yourself.