How a Dummy Installs Transition Molding - The Freelance Files MMCXC

laminate to carpet transition

Most of us are familiar with the concept of a "tell," right? You know, the poker player who scratches his nose when she's bluffing, or the baseball pitcher who shrugs his shoulders before throwing a changeup? Well, a lot of freelancers have a tell of sorts, in particular when they're writing about a topic that, to be honest, they shouldn't be writing about. Today's nominee is one such freelancer, another the unending line of J-school grads who've written for eHow.com. Meet Cheryl Munson, whose tell in "How to Lay Laminate Flooring Over Concrete and Transition to Carpet" was pretty obvious to anyone who'd ever done the job.

Here's Munson's tell: when you transition between two different surfaces while installing floors, you use a transition strip. This trip is typically wood molding of a specific shape. Cheryl used the phrase "transition strip" exactly zero times, but referred to the molding as "mold" on seven different occasions, even though only one of her of her eight references did so. In fact, no one here has ever heard of shortening "molding" to "mold." Is that enough of a tell for you?

It is for us, but we realize others might need more evidence of Munson's ignorance. Try this on for size (Cheryl's steps 7 through 9):

7. "Drill holes into the concrete with a hammer drill... with a 1/4-inch masonry bit."
8. "Insert 1/4-inch wooden dowels into the holes. Use a hammer to tap the dowel into place. Break off the top of the dowel with a chisel so it is flush with the top [sic] of the concrete."
9. "Use 1 1/2-inch masonry screws to screw the track into the dowel-covered holes."

We mentioned before that Munson used eight different references, apparently cutting and pasting from the different sources. Here's that the source that suggested fitting dowels in the holes actually said:

"Secure the track to the floor with wood screws. Don't use screws that are too long. I like to use 3/4 inch [emphasis ours] screws."

Munson had, of course, other problems because of her ignorance of laying flooring. For one, she never mentioned fastening the carpet in place with a tack strip. For another, she seemed to think that leveling the floor prior to laying laminate was a simple matter of,

"Use a chisel to remove any bumps in the concrete and a steel file to level the space where you removed the bumps."

Guess she didn't stop to consider low spots. There's also this:

"Cut the laminate boards with a circular saw..."

...which we included to remind ourselves that eHow's freelancers seemed unaware of any other type of saw. Or perhaps this tripped her up:

"Apply glue to the back of the laminate boards..."

Ummm, no. If you're gluing down laminate (most people don't, in favor of a floating floor); you spread the adhesive on the floor, not the back of the laminate. That sounds more like instructions for installing a tile floor. And finally, a nod to Munson's grammar-challenge:

"If you are transitioning the laminate and carpeting between a doorway area..."

We know what she was trying to say, but she sure did a lousy job of it. In fact, our Dumbass of the Day just plain did a lousy job of her entire assignment. It didn't help that she kept bouncing back and forth between "T mold" and "reducer molding." Perhaps she should have stuck with writing advertising copy...

DDIY - FLOORS