Spend here
- Kitchen, laundry, baths and entries. Water, grit and traffic all land here. A waterproof plank or tile pays for itself in these rooms.
- Slab prep. A floor laid over a bad slab fails early no matter what it cost. Leveling is the line item to keep.
- The installer. Licensed, insured, with a written labor warranty. Fixing a bad install costs more than doing it right once.
Save here
- Bedrooms. Low traffic, no water. Carpet has the lowest posted starting rate ($2.48/sq ft installed), and a mid-range plank works fine too.
- Sale and in-stock items. Vegas Flooring Outlet posts current sale prices; if one of them suits the room, it is the simplest way to lower the material line. See VFO's current flooring sale.
- Keep the baseboards when you can. If they come off cleanly, reusing them saves material and painting. Quarter-round can cover the expansion gap instead.
- Do one floor, everywhere. One product through the main living space means fewer transitions, fewer cuts and less waste than three different floors.
Buy the right amount
Material comes in full boxes, so the order is the floor area plus extra for cuts, rounded up to whole boxes. Too little means a second order that may come from a different production lot and not match. Too much is money sitting in the garage. The calculator shows the extra percentage and counts boxes once you enter the coverage printed on the box.
Keep one or two leftover boxes. A spare plank from the same lot turns a damaged board into a quick repair.
Don't cut these corners
- Skipping the moisture test on a slab.
- Putting extra underlayment under planks that come with a pad already, when the product's warranty forbids it.
- Laying planks without the expansion gap the manufacturer specifies.
- Hiring someone who won't put a license number on the quote.
Spread the cost
If doing the whole house at once is the most efficient plan but not the most comfortable payment, ask about financing. Flooring financing at Vegas Flooring Outlet.