Easy DIY Flooring Tips + NuCore Flooring Review

Looking for easy bathroom flooring options? NuCore is a waterproof product that can be used over your existing flooring, and it’s easy to install. In this post, we share our initial thoughts on NuCore – as well as a two year update. We also share some DIY bathroom flooring tips to make your DIY project even easier. 

Vinyl Floors in Bathroom 

This post was done in partnership with Floor&Decor.

A wonderful part of the Holidays is family getting together…

That means more hands to get a project done, right?

How about updating Grandma’s or your parent’s linoleum bathroom floor?

There is a great new product called NuCore that we found at Floor&Decor.

It is “sound resistant, soft underfoot, and resistant to mold & mildew.” I took that statement right off the box because it really sums up its best features very quickly.

I just finished installing it in our upstairs bathroom. It turned out great! NuCore can be placed over your existing floor, and even slightly uneven floors.

Here is a little before and after picture:

What a difference it makes!

Here are a few tips for installing bathroom flooring, as well as specifically if you are using NuCore products.

NuCore Reviews – Low Budget Flooring Option

There are a lot of different options for bathroom flooring. After looking at multiple options, we decided to go with NuCore flooring.

The NuCore products are a great low budget option.

It might not seem that way by just looking at the sq. ft. price. However, NuCore ends up being cheaper if you factor in not having to buy a moisture barricade underlayment, heavy duty tools, and other accompanying products that some floors need.

For example, with tile, you have to get mortar, grout, and a wet tile saw. Even if you can borrow a wet tile saw, a new blade is about $70 by itself.

Most importantly NuCore can be installed relatively quickly.

Time is money after all.

With NuCore you don’t have to spend time removing the old floor, installing a moisture barricade, and it is easy to cut with a utility knife.

If you follow the instructions (which, admittedly, I didn’t at first) the pieces lock together quickly, and there is very little stressing about gaps. Plus, if you wanted to get the soft, sound dampening effects of a cork underlayment you would have to add $.60 a sq. ft. to the overall price and install it separately.

For essentially being a laminate floor, NuCore looks really classy. Sure, if you look closely you can tell it isn’t real wood.

However, it looks a million times better than the thirty-year-old linoleum that was on the floor. I feel like it is almost better than real wood because of how nice if feels on your feet when you walk on it.

I bought our NuCore floor at Floor&Decor. They have a lot of different types of flooring options.

Surprisingly, it only took us about thirty seconds to decide on a color (if you know Katie, she has a very hard time making her mind up about things especially).

We got the Cocoa Oak Hand Scraped color. The employee helping us showed us where the matching quarter rounds and T-transition pieces were, and we were out of the store after a total of twenty minutes.

2019 Update – Two Years Later

We have had our NuCore flooring in the bathroom for over two years now, and we couldn’t be happier with the result. 

The color looks great, and we often are given compliments on how nice it looks in the bathroom. 

There has been no warping at all, and it looks just as good today as it did the day we installed it. 

We have definitely had lots of water splashed all over it (we have two little boys, after all), so it definitely has had a good test in regards to it’s waterproof claims. 

There are no scratches or blemishes anywhere. 

We are actually moving soon, and if our new home has need of new flooring in the bathroom, we will definitely be using NuCore again, because it was worked SO well. 

It’s just a very classy product that gives you a high-class look on a lower-class budget 🙂 

Bathroom Flooring DIY 

Read the Instructions

I would recommend reading through the instructions for the material you use. I really wish I had done that.

I think it would have saved me some time in the long run.

Know what Tools You Will Need

This will save you time in the long run if you aren’t constantly running back to the store for a tool you forgot. Every floor project will be different, so research the material and techniques being used to know what you will need.

Remember, if you’re doing a bathroom project you will have to take up the toilet, and reinstall it when you’re done. The NuCore floor is only about a quarter of an inch thick, so an extra thick wax ring should be all you need to reinstall the toilet.

Thinking of all needed tools for all steps will make your work go much faster. That is especially important if you have a bunch of family helpers for a Holiday weekend. You want to take advantage of extra helpers while they’re there.

You could easily install a NuCore floor in a bathroom during a weekend with a helper or two.

Here are the tools we used to install the NuCore flooring in our bathroom:

Tools:

• • Utility Knife
  • Circular Saw
  • Protective Eyewear
  • Rubber Mallet

• • Measuring Tape
  • Pen/Marker
  • Chalk Line Reel (makes long lines fast and straight)
  • Speed Square (45-degree cuts on quarter rounds)
  • Finishing Nails (for new quarter rounds)

• Hammer
• Pry Bar (removes old quarter rounds)
• Matching Waterproof Caulk
• Spacers (for along the walls)
• Drill (for T transitions)
• Drill bit kit (for T transitions)
• Screw Driver (for T transitions)

As always, if you have a different tool that gets the job done, then great!

Measure and Cut Accurately

I would recommend that you measure and place as you go rather than at the end the can disassemble and reassemble if you need to tighten some planks together.

Sometimes one little error in measurement can get exaggerated, and in the end it is a huge headache. When cutting, always remember on which side which channels are located. I always had my under-hanging channels on the top and right. I then flipped the plank over to make my marks for cutting.

A few times I didn’t mentally adjust for flipping the board back over, and I cut into the wrong side of the board. You have to make sure that your channels are located on the right sides, or you might just have to pull out a full new board to get just the right part of a board. Buy at least ten percent extra, and probably more than that so you can make sure you have all of the right pieces.

Cutting Quarter Rounds

Be careful when cutting your quarter rounds. These were a lot trickier than I thought.

Quarter rounds are partially square and partially round, so they’re a little tricky to cut at exactly 45 degrees. If you don’t cut it just right for your corners, then your corners won’t match up.

Take your time and measure triple, so you will only have to cut once. I used a circular saw to cut my quarter rounds. If you do the same, cut slowly so you don’t chip the faux wood cover over the wood composite. I had some issues with chipping when I rushed or didn’t cut exactly straight.