LESLIE: Reed, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
REED: We had some water damage in our basement and got it repaired by getting drainage put around the perimeter of our house, both inside the basement and outside the basement.
TOM: OK.
REED: And …
TOM: We probably would not have told you to do that, Reed, but I don’t think that’s why you’re calling. (all chuckle)
REED: They jack-hammered the linoleum. It was linoleum over concrete.
TOM: Right.
REED: And they jack-hammered the linoleum up, so we’ve got about an 18-inch perimeter of just concrete now where they poured more cement. And I’m trying to figure out, in an inexpensive way, to cover it without just throwing a piece of carpet over it but not having to pull up the linoleum.
TOM: Right. Yeah, that’s too bad. So they basically tore out the linoleum along the edges?
REED: Yes, yes.
TOM: Yeah. Well, I mean you’re kind of looking at a new floor here, don’t you think, Reed?
REED: Well, I’m trying to – I wondered about painting it or I wondered about putting concrete down over it or something like that.
TOM: Yeah. I was personally thinking of the idea of a laminate floor, which is not terribly expensive and would be – you wouldn’t have to do anything with the section of linoleum that remains.
LESLIE: You can go right over it.
TOM: You can basically go right on top of it. A laminate floor is a floating floor, so it’ll float right across the entire floor up against the exterior foundation wall.
LESLIE: And then all you would need to do is a quarter round or a shoe molding to just sort of cover that gap between where the laminate ends and the wall starts.
TOM: Exactly.
REED: OK, so what about where the – so it wouldn’t be uneven where the linoleum ends.
TOM: No, it has a little bit of give to it.
REED: OK.
TOM: And there’s usually an underlayment that gives it a little bit of a spongy kind of feel to it. It’s actually quite comfortable.
LESLIE: Yeah, and it’s like a roll-out foam underlayment, so it’s very easy. And you can even buy some laminates that have the underlayment directly attached to the backside but you really – the roll-out one is fine.
REED: OK. And you just get that at Home Depot or some place like that?
TOM: Yeah, any floor company, flooring center or a hardware store or a home center is going to have those kinds of products.
REED: Thank you.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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