Our New Kitchen Floor
How this story began.
When we bought the house the floor was okay. Nothing to write home about but it was clean and we could live with the pattern. Then came the first summer! The floor started lifting. Only a little bit. Being a novice at fllors I thought that the heat was causing the flooring to shrink. After the third summer it was terrible and we couldn't stand it anymore. As you can see below, it had really gotten quite bad.
We started saving and looking for what we wanted. We found the material and started looking for someone to install it. We realized that this was a big job and the do-it-yourself routine was not going to cut it. We finally settled on an installer who would do it the way we wanted for a reasonable price. So we ordered the material and waited for it to come in. About two weeks before Christmas everything was ready. So...
The
old flooring was pulled up, and the glue holding the edges was
scrapped away. (Of course it was evident that in the places that
the floor had pulled away, the floor had not been rolled into the
glue originally. The glue was well adhered to the floor, but
there wasn't a trace of it on the back side of the vinyl.)
First, a skim coat was applied across the floor. This smoothed
everything out. Then the skim coat was sanded smooth and any
remaining holes were filled in. This gave a near perfect surface
for our new floor to lay on. Of course this sanding made a heck
of a lot of dust. This is the only drawback to the whole process
in my opinion. 
Next, the flooring was brought in, rolled out and trimmed to fit the floor. Then one half was folded back and the glue applied. The floor is then put back on the glue and rolled. This process is then repeated on the other side.
The next operation was to join all the pieces together. This occurred in the bay of the breakfast nook and with the piece in the laundry room. All of this is done after the flooring has been glued down. First the joint is cleaned with solvent, the buffed with the flooring manufacturers cleaner, then sealed with the manufacturers sealant. The key is to stayy off the floor and especially the joints for several hours. Otherwise the joints will never be right. They will open and shrink and curl, and generally end up looking as bad as the floor we just replaced. Anyway, I'm happy to report that to date, it is almost impossible to see these joints. (And I know what I'm looking for!)
Next we finished up! First the flooring needed to be pushed under the trim in the doorway to the laundry room. And then the trim needed to be put back. After a couple of days to let things dry I moved back all the heavy appliances.
