Flooring Basics: Choose, Install, and Repair Floors in Every Room of Your House

Flooring Basics gives homeowners a practical, safety-first guide to choosing, installing, repairing, and caring for floors throughout the house. Learn how to match flooring materials to each room, avoid moisture failures, check old floors for asbestos risk, prepare a flat and quiet subfloor, estimate square footage and waste, plan layout, acclimate materials, leave the right expansion gaps, install floating floors, handle transitions and trim, and understand the limits of glue-down vinyl, sheet vinyl, hardwood, tile, carpet, stairs, and repairs. The book is clear about where DIY stops too: asbestos-positive flooring, lead-painted trim, structural subfloor problems, unresolved moisture, stretch-in carpet, and hardwood drum sanding all get plain professional-required warnings. Built for beginners, this guide focuses on the decisions and details that make a floor look clean, stay flat, and last.