Laminate Floor Beading Explained

The floor is one of the parts of the house that you are most physically connected to. It makes the most part of what your house looks and feels like. You can walk barefoot and shrug off all the tiredness of a hectic day at the office, especially if it is a hardwood floor. No matter if it is the oak or the Maplewood, the fragrance of the aging wood is so refreshing and becomes the beating heart of your home.

As we all know, it takes a lot of time and money to install a hardwood floor or laminate floor. Professional floor contractors are required with the right skillset and modern tools and equipment to make sure everything goes where it should. It even feels like solving a puzzle. You are playing with the individual pieces and you have a sketch of what the finished product would look like. And in the end, with effort and expertise, you get there.

A laminate floor is not a straightforward thing to install or repair, despite the common belief. There is so much detailing and thought that goes into it that it is not possible to do it yourself, even if you have some experience working and tinkering with the floors.

For instance, take beading and skirting boards. Many of us have not heard those words before we got into working on the floor. Still, if you are adamant about getting things done yourself, we will help you with the beading of the laminate floor. But before delving into this specialized flooring term, let us explain what it is and how it works.

Edging

The work is not done by sampling putting the pieces together on the floor. It is time for finishing and professional touches to make the floor looks neat and tidy. This is where beading comes into the picture. Beading boards are specially designed boards that go into the gaps left between the floor and the wall. As you can imagine, if you leave the gaps as they are, it could accumulate dirt and debris as well as compromise the structural integrity of the floor by leaving space for the boards to come out with the slightest pull.

It should be interesting to mention that beading is not the only term or article that is used to cover this space. There are skirting boards that can do this trick as well. Actually, this setup goes as a complementary set. Either the skirting board goes with the beading or the beading boards go with the skirting. So, it all boils down to decide if you should bead or not!

Before we progress further, let us explain these terms that are going to be used extensively in this post.

Skirting

This term refers to the installation of wooden boards in the gaps that are created in the process of laminate floor installation. These gaps are usually found between the wall and the floor which are closed by using skirting boards. They are milled and designed specifically to do this task with a certain ease. As with the number of options when it comes to wooden or laminate floors, you can always find skirting boards corresponding to that laminate floor.

Beading

Generally, beading involves covering the additional gaps when you replace a floor. The material used for beading is not necessarily wood. There are a number of materials that are used in the production of beading. It includes wood, PVC, MDF, etc. It is a more instant and versatile choice when it comes to filling the gaps in a time and cost-effective way.

As far as using one or the other or one in conjunction with the other is entirely up to you. In your decision making, there are factors that will come into play, such as:

• The convenience of removing older skirting boards and putting them back on once you are done with your newly replaced floor.

• The desire to go the traditional way of doing the skirting boards or exploring new avenues like using beading materials.

The Right Time For Beading

If you ask a professional floorer or a contractor with ample experience in installing and replacing wooden floors, there is no ideal or right time to go for beading. According to them, the skirting boards are just fine to work because they go seamlessly between the gaps and mingle with the lamination as if they are a unit of the whole, which they become. Not to mention that it always looks and feels cleaner when you go for the skirting boards.

Having said that, it is not always cost-effective and prudent as well to undo all the skirting boards whenever you need to repair or replace your floor. At those times, beading is an excellent contender that can fill the voids between the walls and the new floors with absolutely no trouble at all.

If you are renovating your house and you still want the skirting boards, you can have them. This would change the course of work for laminate floor installation because you would have to make alignment with the skirting boards as well. Or you can take another approach. You can install the floorboards by making the edges of skirting boards as the new “wall” and then fill those gaps with beading.

How Much Beading Is Enough?

Now that we are past the idea of whether using beading to fill the gaps or not, it is time to know how much beading would be enough. Of course, it will always depend on the area that you need to cover with it, which makes it very easy once you know how to measure things.

It involves two steps:

• The number one is to run a measuring tape around the edge of the room. This will give you the mark of the length of the room in meters.

• Once you are done with the measurement, you need to divide the number you get in meters and divide it by 1.6. Just to remind you, the standard beading lengths come in 1.83 meters which means you will have enough surplus to even work your way around after some errors.

This way, you can use a beading to completely fill the gaps that run through the length of the walls along with the floors. If you have not hired a professional laminate floor contractor, it would be harder for you to remove all the skirting boards, replace the floor and then put the skirting boards back on. Even, there is a danger in removing them because there are chances many of the boards could not stand the chocks of pulling and pushing. At this point, beading is a great save which uses a variety of materials to cover the space.

Alternatives To Beading

With the advancements in technology, there are newer products coming in each day. Most of the time, these new products are much better than what came before them and can be used as their alternatives for long-lasting results.

So, if you are not much of a fan of beading and it not affordable for you to rip off all the skirting boards to replace your floor, there are alternatives!

They will offer the same level of utility and protection thus giving you the ultimate peace of mind that you are looking for.