The Pergo^® floor we choose was Pergo^® Presto. Its about the same as the regular Pergo^® flooring but it's much easier to install...no glue. The special tounge and groove snap together. That means no gluing and clamping every piece. A real time saver.

I guess I should back track a little. Floor prep. The first thing we did was pull up the carpet and padding. In our house this was no easy chore. The carpet itself came up easy, but the pad looked original from 1968. A putty knife did not do well. The boys and I ended up scraping up the padding with wood chisles. In this fun time of scrapping we also had to remove the tack strips that held the carpet and the staples that held down the pad. This all took about three weeks or so on weekends.

In the process of scraping, as we would get a section done, I painted the floor with Kilz. Kilz is a great primer/sealer that will even seal out odors. I also filled some low spots with a floor leveling compound. I must admit, I didn't level the floor as perfectly as they recommend but it's pretty close.

After all that was done I got out the hammer and nails and started attacking the squeaky floor. Many, many nails later the floor was ready for the Pergo^® flooring. I also had to trim the bottoms of the door jams to slide the flooring underneath. This gives a lot better look when done, because you can't add trim in the door ways.

One more thing I did before installation of the floor was to remove the floor registers and intake vents that are right at floor level. I figured It would make the floor much more finshed looking if they were mounted again on top of the floor. Right now your thinking "of course you put the registers on top." Well, the floor registers we have are a wall/floor type. They mount to the wall right at floor level, as you will see in the pictures.

All that said, its floor time. I decided to start by the front door. The first thing you have to do with the first row is to cut the tounge off the entire length of each piece. This is easy to do with a sharp utility knife. I quikly made my way across the floor. Well, as quickly as I could, having to move furniture in the process. I recommend removing all furniture from the room. I had some interesting cutting to do around some door ways. But I only ended up wasting one piece. Which, as it ended up, is all I could afford to mess up. You see, If I had messed up one other piece I would have had to go down and buy another box of flooring at 60 some dollars a box. Measure twice, cut once. Side note: the piece got messed up during installation not cutting. It was a thin piece.

Pergo^® makes some nice floor trim and quarter round trim, but, it's a little spendy. I left the original trim on the wall. After the floor was in I went around with some pine 1/2" quarter round painted the same as the wall and trim. It looks very nice and finished. The reason you need to put the extra trim around the room is that you must leave 1/4" gap between the flooring and the wall for expansion.

On trimming out the room I got a little custom around the floor registers. You'll see below in the pictures.

I recommend the Pergo^® brand felt pads for your furniture. I tried some other felt pads, but they didn't seem to stick as well to the bottoms of furniture legs. These pads will really help in keeping your floor scratch free.

As for keeping the floor in good shape, all it really needs is an occasional sweeping or the use of a Swifer. If you have pets, you'll really notice the fur now. It dosen't get embedded in the floor like it did in the carpet. Thats a good thing. It's much easier to keep clean, and you know that when it looks clean, it is clean.