How To Save Money on Lowe’s Flooring Installation

If you’re having flooring installed by Lowe’s or Home Depot soon, here are some ways that you can save a little bit of money by doing some things yourself!

Our kitchen makeover is totally under swing and last week we got our floors re-done. Some people that I talked to were surprised that we didn’t DIY them.

I wanted to share the before and afters and tell you why we didn’t DIY them and give you some awesome tips for saving money on flooring installation done by Lowes!

Ways to save money on flooring installation

We bought our house in July and the previous owners replaced all of the flooring except the kitchen. The rest of the downstairs is a Pergo laminate flooring.

We love the color and texture of it. Since we are trying to run the same materials in our whole first floor to make it feel larger and more cohesive, I definitely wanted to run these same floors into our kitchen.

Why didn’t we DIY them? It might sound kind of strange but we didn’t want to DIY them because it was such a small space. If it was our whole first floor it would be worth it to rent the equipment and learn the technique to lay the floors. For this small space, it just didn’t seem worth it to us.

Secondly, we really didn’t want to touch the tile removal. It was all 1990’s tile and we are on a concrete slab. We felt super un-confident about removing it and getting it smooth. I knew from the sound of the project that it would end up falling on Sean and it seemed like a big project for one guy.

How did the process go? We went to the flooring counter at Lowes. We gave them some information and they sent a woman out to come measure (using a fancy laser beam) the next week. Those numbers gave us a specific quote.

Make sure that you ask for an itemized quote. We saw the below items that we knew that we could DIY:

• Move all furniture from the space- $40
• Disconnect fridge water line- $35
• Move fridge and stove from space- $75
• Remove and reattach the toilet- $70
• Remove and reattach the quarter round- $140
• Delivery fee (from local Lowe’s)- $80

TOTAL SAVINGS: $440

After that, we went to the flooring counter again, had them adjust the quote to take off the things we wanted to DIY, and then paid for the order in full. In the end, all we opted to pay for was the tile removal and laminate install.

A couple of days later an installer called us to schedule the install. It ended up being about 3 weeks out.

A week later, we went by Lowes and picked up all of the flooring. The installer told us to let it acclimate inside the house for a few days so we just stacked it in the front room.

The weekend before the install, we removed the floor molding and the toilet. The quarter round was very easy to remove using a pry bar and a hammer.

The night before the install we moved the fridge and the stove. We plugged the fridge in in the dining room so we didn’t lose any food.

The contractors removed the old flooring and installed the new flooring in less than six hours. It was really loud (especially removing the tile) but it was over quickly and they did a great job doing everything and cleaning up all of the mess.

After they were done, we still had to replace the fridge and stove and also re-hang the quarter round. We were actually able to re-use 75% of the old quarter round which saved us $80 in pieces that we were able to return (they were $4 for each 8 foot piece).

We love love love having our laminate floor in the whole first floor of our house now. By DIYing a few things, we were able to have the projected professionally done on a budget.

Here’s how our coastal kitchen ended up turning out!

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Morgan

Hello, I’m Morgan, half of the creative force behind CharlestonCrafted.com! With a passion for DIY that dates back to 2012, I’ve transformed three homes and now I’m dedicated to helping others craft their dream spaces. Let’s turn your house into a home together!