Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Floor Decor: Beautiful, Long-lasting Floors You Can Design & Install (Black & Decker Complete Guide) [Paperback]

Clayton Bennett (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Black & Decker Complete Guide | Publication Date: August 5, 2007

In this major revision to 2003's Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Flooring, consumers now have the only truly comprehensive flooring book available. It contains information on all types of flooring surfaces, both indoors and outdoors, and covers every aspect of the process—from design and planning to finishing and repair.

New in this edition, and unique among all flooring books, Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Floor Decor contains installation sequences for the most popular new flooring trends, including bamboo and cork. Also new is an inspirational chapter that reveals the secrets used by designers to make floors an essential element of home decor.

Carpet, ceramic tile, vinyl, laminate, hardwood, and stone—it's all here in one truly complete guide to floor decor.

 

• Covers all new laminate flooring products
• Complete instruction for radiant heating systems
• Includes comprehensive refinishing and maintenance information
• Includes decorative painting designs and concrete etching options

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Clayton Bennett is a professional writer, the author of several nonfiction books, and the owner and remodeler of a Craftsman-era bungalow in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He also takes jobs in residential building and remodeling in order to learn skills before writing about them.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Creative Publishing international; 2nd edition (August 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589233328
• ISBN-13: 978-1589233324
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,098,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great flooring book, May 24, 2005

By 

J. Holland (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Flooring (Black & Decker) (Paperback)

I've only helped a neighbour lay a wooden floor before so I needed all the help i could get. This book is informative with good pictures and ideas. It details everything from the tools you need to the different types of flooring and how to lay them
I now feel confident to embark on purchasing and laying my own wooden floor. Highly recommended for a beginner

52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something To Stand On, April 27, 2004

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Flooring (Black & Decker) (Paperback)

I suspect that one of the most insane decisions in my life is deciding to redo my kitchen - on my own. This makes all kinds of practical sense, given what labor costs. But I am incorrigibly un-handy. But in a fit of pseudo-parsimony (you never really save any money doing something yourself - you just buy tools instead of labor) and a determination to recover my macho I have sailed into the unknown of plumbing, cabinetry, plastering, tiling, and, worst of all, flooring.

No sooner did it become obvious that replacing the floor was inevitable than I realized that I was completely clueless about what to use and how to go about it. Of course there is no lack of people who will tell you what they would do, but this is one of those things that you live with forever and it needed to be wholly what I wanted. At this point I scanned the shelf of the local handyman's heaven and found this little cheery volume.

For the most part it's quite practical. Chapters on planning, design, and preparation nurse you through the start up and dreaded removing of the old floor stages. Then there are chapters on hardwood floors, ceramic and stone floors, resilient flooring, and carpeting. More follows on finishing and repair. More than enough to answer the basic questions of how to close the knowledge gap and make a sensible decision about how to proceed.

There are countless photos, and the writing style is clear, even if it is a bit dull. Of course, dull is a good thing when making a major household change. One gets excited when the day is over and the job done, not by unexpected drama in the kitchen. This seems as good a reference as any I've seen, and covers far more than I ever wanted to know. I expect that someday soon my cats will be walking on something entirely new. Complaining as they go, of course.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too simplistic, July 27, 2007

By 

Karaya (NH USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Flooring (Black & Decker) (Paperback)

I've bought this book for my laminate floor project. The book turned out to be a disappointment: it gives no more information than I found on a leaflet from a laminate crate. With great details and pictures it explains very basic things, like it targeted for a 6-years old doing his school science project. But it omits really important details and nuances: how to calculate a layout so you wouldn't end up with the 1-inch wide last row, where to use which molding and how to install it, and so on. And if some unexperienced and not technically-inclined person starts his project using only this book, he very quickly may find himself in the troubles, with lot of materials and time wasted.