Why I no listen?

Wish I listened to me.  I endlessly tell people to make templates when fitting anything to anything.  It is much better than relying on just measuring.  Most of us are rubbish at measuring accurately and drawing lines accurately and cutting out accurately - there's three ways you can be slightly 'off'.  If you make a physical shape and shove it in place successfully you know, if you replicate it carefully, the real thing will then fit.

Having done this for four years and thinking I am a smarty-pants I 'carefully' measured and cut out my first floor section.  Et voila!

The gap was so big that even if I evened it up between the two sides the skirting boards would not cover it!

Even with the added quarter of an inch that I miscalculated you can see that the final adjustment on the template shows how the walls run out of line.  There was no way this would cut as a regular shaped rectangle.

The methodology here is to cut the paper about the right size being sure it is a little over.  Put it squarely in place along two edges and then run your finger nail or something like around the edges to crease where you need to trim.

template fits fine

It is also useful to mark up its orientation before you remove it - astonishing how easy it is to cut part of the floor one way up and another part the other way up, believe me two lefts do not make a whole.

crunch time

The next step is to lay your finished template on your floor material keeping two edges square on - in this case it was the bottom edge and left side.  Draw down the edge you need to cut (the right side).  The other thing you need to do is mark up on the paper where the next piece of floor will start from - that's the pencil line you can see across the top.  You will then lay the template on another piece of flooring and cut out this remaining shape.

Don't forget to mark front edges on the back of the two flooring pieces - again easy to stick on down the wrong way round and then discover the gap.

Two pieces cut to fit properly

Finished job..... well the cutting any way.  I am now off to finish the surface.... decisions, decisions.

These, incidentally, are sheets of real wood flooring from Jennifers of Walsall

Handy tip:  Cut your template and flooring for the largest room first; that way you can use the paper template again for a smaller and then if you are lucky another smaller area, so getting three templates from one piece of paper.  Also, if you do make a hash of the flooring, it gives you a chance to reuse that for a smaller floor.

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