Yay.....Finally ripping out (most) of our very blue carpet..!

The DW and I have been talking about ripping the mid 90's blue carpet out of the MH and replacing it with Allure vinyl flooring. We drug home a box of wood grain Allure that we thought would look nice and plopped down about three pieces on top of the carpet to see what it would look like. Yuck...! I know some of it looks really nice in the projects I've seen on the forum, but when you have a little tiny MH like ours with a lot of wood cabinets and no slides, it makes it look like you are living inside a wooden box. Back to the store and purchased a box of random tile looking Allure. A whole lot better. We decided that since we were going with the tile look, we would leave the carpet around the bed for now until we change the color. I ripped out the carpet and prepped the floor today and will install the Allure this weekend. I was really pleased to see how good the shape of the subfloor was in. Here's the before pics.

That looks so nice!  My friends (2 couples) both have older MH's and that's what they've both done.  It makes it look so much bigger!!  Good Job!

our carpet started coming out last week. We decided on the wood grain Allure flooring but are hoping to break up all the wood with rugs. I know what you mean by the wood box look.

I just notice you don't have heater grills in the floor. Was she born that way or you moved them? Our Winnie has 5 heater grills that I am moving to wall or toe-kick areas. It is annoying to step on a hot metal grill barefooted in the middle of the night!

4ducksrus said:

That looks so nice!  My friends (2 couples) both have older MH's and that's what they've both done.  It makes it look so much bigger!!  Good Job!

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Thanks 4ducks, I'll post a few pics of the finished product, but only if I'm satisfied with it..... Maybe the DW will let us go RV shopping if it doesn't come out okay....

catblaster said:

I just notice you don't have heater grills in the floor. Was she born that way or you moved them? Our Winnie has 5 heater grills that I am moving to wall or toe-kick areas. It is annoying to step on a hot metal grill barefooted in the middle of the night!

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It was born that way catblaster. I actually had to add one to make the furnace function properly. It couldn't get rid of enough of it's heat and kept going out on high temp. So when you move them make sure you maintain at least the same square inches of ducting that you had originally.

Good luck with your project, Water Dog.

I am planning on doing the same thing when we finally get home from our CG Hosting adventure at the Carolina coast.  I've been considering it for years, but generally forget about it between trips.

We, too, have decided on the lighter random tile patterns because of the use of so much wood grain cabinets already installed.  Thanks for confirming my suspicion that it would look like overkill with so much wood.

catblaster said:

I just notice you don't have heater grills in the floor. Was she born that way or you moved them? Our Winnie has 5 heater grills that I am moving to wall or toe-kick areas. It is annoying to step on a hot metal grill barefooted in the middle of the night!

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are you moving the ducts in the floor?

I've only move two ducts so far, one in the bath and the one in the bedroom. Heater duct is wide enough for me to drill thru dividing wall at bedroom/bath and into duct under floor. I had to do away with small hamper cabinet in bath but we only used it for dog food storage anyway. Flooring in kitchen area and living room will be removed after next trip to coast around 8Th of June. hope to move kitchen duct to pantry cabinet and two living room ducts will be piped to drivers seat and passenger seat areas. Good thinking on having enough ducts to keep from high limit shut-off. Thinking I should add a grill  near dining area.

I'd be interested in seeing some photos of your remodel.

I was able to get my Allure flooring down today with the help of the DW. Pretty straight foreward installation and the only real problem is the lack of space to work in. Decided to leave the blue carpet on the vertical stair risers instead of gluing the Allure to them.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have the opportunity to get some 1/4 round shoe molding down. Here's some pics of the the progress (we like progress... ;D). The dark 1/4 round in pics 3 & 4 isn't going to be used, I just forgot to pick it up before taking pictures.

that floor looks really nice  ;D was it a hard job  ???

katgold said:

that floor looks really nice  ;D was it a hard job  ???

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Thanks katgold. It was pretty easy. The Allure has underlap and overlap glue strips so it glues to each other, but is not glued to the floor...kind of the way laminate floors work (they lock together, but just sit on the subfloor). Cutting is done with a utility knife, but you have to make sure the blade is sharp. All in all, I would definitely recommend for ease of installation.

Your floor looks terrific! You are lucky there wasn't much to prep on the subfloor, I had carriage bolts to deal with.

I ripped my carpet out last July while living in my motorhome fulltime, then laid down vinyl tile that is pale abstract marble.  It is the BEST thing I ever did.

Clean up is a snap, the lighter color bounces the light. 

I have plenty of throw rugs if it gets cold, I can lay them out almost end to end,then shake and  throw them in the washer and roll up for storage when it's summer like now. The best of both worlds.

The tables are different in the pictures, I also traded tables with another RV-er, I gave him my big table, he gave me his small table, we both left happy.

Looks really great!!

DearMissMermaid said:

Your floor looks terrific! You are lucky there wasn't much to prep on the subfloor, I had carriage bolts to deal with.

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Actually Miss Mermaid, I did have three carriage bolts that stuck up just a little. I just got out my little angle grinder with some 60 grit on it and sanded them down flush, then filled the rest of the carriage bolt holes with Fix-all.

You are so right about the light and clean up. We should have done this way sooner. Somewhere down the line, we'll probably get rid of the rest of the blue carpet and upholstery and go with something a little more neutral, but for right now, we're ready to go fishing...!

Finished flooring project today by putting some pre-finished 1/4 round shoe molding from Lowe's around perimeter. Here's a couple of pics of the finished product.

Disclaimer: My wife says I'm not very good at taking pictures because I have a tendency not to pick things up before I take them. That's the reason there is still stuff in the sink and on the dinette seats....because I'm sloppy, not because she's a bad housekeeper.... ;D ;D

Very nice job. I hope my finished product turns out as nice. "She who must be obeyed" will not let me continue until we get back from our next trip.

catblaster said:

"She who must be obeyed"

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That's funny, I have one of those too.

Floor molding? 

I took the cheap easy way out and bought some caulk that was close in color to the abstract tile, then caulked around the edges, no molding. But I did buy the angle metal stuff for the steps, caulked around it too, so the dirt wouldn't shove under it when sweeping.

I admire you for taking the toilet out and doing the bathroom. My bath floor is a bit odd, on two levels.  I guess you could say the throne is on a platform.  ;D

I just left the carpet in there, bought a nice coordinating washable bath mat to cover the old carpet on the worn area. One of these days I will contemplate taking the toilet out and redoing the bathroom in tile. But since I live in mine fulltime, I'm not in a rush to remove the toilet. Besides, mine is a split bath, so I don't have shower water bouncing on it. The bathroom carpet wasn't in that bad of shape.

I also left the carpet up front in the cab area. It has rubber floor mats for the foot area and it is a tiny step down, maybe 1 inch from the rest of the RV floor. It just looked like too much work to remove and replace that carpet for a do-it-your-selfer. Also, was worried it might make it noisier up front where the gas engine is. Too many angles to do tile up there. 

The cab carpet gives the puppy traction when he hops out of his seat onto the floor up there. He is on a safety harness, so he can't go anywhere, but still the carpet keeps him from sliding around if he is napping between the two seats. Oh the things we do for the canine kids...

When the throw rugs are put away, he has learned to go skating down the vinyl floor in hot pursuit of his toys. I think he likes the sliding around, he seems to do it on purpose a lot.  :

Looks like a great job!  I think you made a wise choice in going with the tile look versus the wood.  Usually I wouldn't say that but I think the area isn't well suited for wood on wood on wood.  And I'm amazed at how well your subflooring looked!  smooth man, smooth.  8)