Help! The interlocking boards of my floating wood floors are starting to loosen and come apart. It still looks good, but how long do I have?
How can it look good if the boards are coming apart? You must mean that the finish appears to still have some life left in it. In any case, you need to hire a flooring expert to see if the floor - whether it's real solid wood or a pre-finished wood-veneer product - is salvageable. Personally, I don't like a floating wood floor as it tends to move and doesn't feel solid. Wood products will contract in the winter and expand during the summer, so a floating floor is extra-unstable. And if the contraction is severe, it can come apart. "How long you have" depends on how tolerant you are: You can wait until the summer to see if the floor settles back, but I would bite the bullet, rip it out and replace it with a high-gloss mahogany floor.
Architect and interior designer Dee Dee Taylor Eustace is the president of Taylor Hannah Architect Inc. in Toronto. Have a design question? E-mail style@globeandmail.com.