House Renovation Toronto

Renovation project description:

Our client was suffering from flooding in her house and was expecting the insurance company to fix the preoblems for them. Unfortunately the restoration company did not do their work properly and did cut some holes in some places, and did not touch most other places. 

As soon as we entered our client`s home, we found out there is mold issues from all 4 corners of the house and the restoration company has not cured any mold and mildew.

We offered to remove all the baseboards and start curing the mold and mildew that was spreading all over the house. Toronto is a city that is known for it`s mold and mildew infested houses and no matter what, any house you go to, specially in GTA area, is going to have some sort of mold somewhere visible or invisible growing.

Our procedure was as below :

Demolition

This stage looks easy, but could cause tons of issues later if it is not done properly. We removed carpets, baseboards, door trims and any excessively molded materials.

Designing

Once all the debries were removed, we spoke to our designers and home owner regarding the material they wanted to have, in this case it was Luxurious Vinyl Tile, and we started evaluation the floor for leveling

Self Leveling

In this stage, we figured out the floor is not flat and it is going to cause trouble when we want to install vinyl tiles. Most home owners mistake Self leveling for flooring with flattening out the house. If you floor is heavily sloped, you can`t normally self level it in matter of a day or two. In that case you have to pour hundreds of pounds of self levelers to dry and flatten out the house, which could take up to two weeks to dry out and cure.

In our case, some areas had concrete cracks, some areas were uneven and some areas needed to go higher by 1/4″.

Underlayment

Underlayments are really important when you are installing any type of hardwood, vinyl or engineered hardwood. They are mostly used as vapour barriers, stopping the cold from the floor and they create a nice unique and flat surface that protects the vinyl from floor damages. Our customer was not a fan of it, and insisted the vinyl tiles come with plastic underlayment on them, but in reality, those plastic underlayments are mostly for companies to hike the prices by convincing customers ” They have added another protectiv elayer to the hardwood/laminate/engineered hardwood. There is no really good use into it !

Vinyl Tile Installation

Vinyl tiles are not similar to hardwood or engineered hardwoods. They are kind of plastic type of vinyls, mostly waterproof, fireproof and can be waterproof for up to 24 hours. It took me and my team around one and a half day to install them in this renovation project that was around 700 square ft and consisted of 4 rooms.

Baseboard installation

As mentioned above, baseboard installation is a tricky work. If the house is old and no drywall and new framing has been done for a long time, your walls, frames and drywalls will be crooked. crooked walls could be sloped walls, walls with a belly in the middle, walls that are behind the two studs and so on. When you are trying to install the baseboards in these types of walls, you have two choices, one is to install the baseboards straight, and that will leave a gigantic gap in between the drywall and the baseboard and have to be caulked heavily, or two, you will have to leave baseboard ends that won`t match, so you have to plaster and caulk those pieces to match.

Cleaning up

Cleaning up is one of the most important aspects of a construction jobsite. The jobsite should always be cleaned at the end of the day, should always be wiped and mopped to be presentable to the client.

Enjoying new floors

Our customer was so happy and excited about the project, deadlines and work quality that was done. We are really proud of our team members that are professionals, patient and precise.