Planning a home renovation in Edmonton involves more decisions than most homeowners expect, and flooring is one of the most consequential. Get the sequence right and everything flows. Get it wrong and you’re protecting new floors from other trades, or installing flooring over a subfloor that hasn’t been properly prepared. Here’s a practical guide to planning your Edmonton home renovation with flooring in mind.
The Renovation Sequence: Where Flooring Fits
Flooring almost always goes in last, or near last. Here’s the typical renovation sequence for an Edmonton home:
Demolition: Remove old flooring, cabinets, fixtures as needed
Structural work: Any subfloor repairs, framing changes, window replacements
Rough-in trades: Electrical, plumbing, HVAC changes roughed in before walls close
Insulation and drywall: Walls and ceilings completed and painted
Cabinets and millwork: Kitchen and bathroom cabinets installed
Countertops: Templated and installed after cabinets are set
Plumbing and electrical finish: Fixtures, outlets, switches installed
Flooring: Installed after cabinets and drywall, so installers can fit under toe kicks and along finished walls
Painting touch-ups: Any drips or marks from flooring installation touched up
Final trim and baseboard: Quarter-round or new baseboards installed over flooring edges
The key rule: flooring goes in after the messy trades are done. Hardwood and LVP installed before drywalling are inevitably damaged: dust, moisture, and foot traffic from other trades cause preventable damage.
Exception: Tile Flooring Can Go Earlier
Bathroom tile is sometimes installed before some finish work: shower tile typically goes in as part of the bathroom build sequence, before the vanity and fixtures. Kitchen tile backsplash often goes in after cabinets but before countertops. Your flooring company and general contractor should coordinate the sequence for tile projects specifically.
Planning Your Edmonton Renovation Budget
A realistic renovation budget for an Edmonton home renovation involving flooring should include:
Flooring materials: Budget by room. See our guides to hardwood cost, LVP cost, tile cost, and carpet cost in Edmonton
Installation labour: Typically 30 to 50% of total flooring project cost
Contingency: 10 to 15% of total project budget for surprises
Coordinating Flooring with Cabinets and Countertops
For kitchen and bathroom renovations, flooring colour and material should be selected in coordination with cabinet finish and countertop material, not independently. LCF Flooring offers custom cabinets and countertops alongside flooring, so you can make coordinated selections with one team rather than trying to match decisions made separately.
Using Financing to Fund Your Edmonton Renovation
A complete Edmonton home renovation (flooring, cabinets, countertops, and home additions) can be financed as a single project through LCF Flooring’s flexible financing options. Spreading the cost over monthly payments makes a complete renovation more achievable without depleting savings.