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Acclimate your linoleum to the room. Remove any furniture, appliances, and doors. Detach any baseboards. Remove baseboard nails. Patch up pre-existing flooring material. Use a plywood underlay, as an alternative.
Linoleum and its synthetic alternatives are soft, pliable, and flexible when compared to most other flooring materials. In fact, they're so flexible that they will actually shrink and expand ever-so-slightly with changes in temperature. Though these changes are imperceptible to the naked eye, they can cause minor issues when it comes to installing and maintaining your floor. Because of this, you'll want to give your linoleum a chance to reach its "resting" size by storing it in the room you intend to use it in for about 24 hours prior to installing it. Before beginning the process of laying down your linoleum flooring, you'll want to completely clear your work area from any possible obstructions. For most rooms, this will mean removing any furniture or floor decorations (e.g. rugs, etc.), along with any appliances that are connected to the floor, like toilets or pedestal-style sinks. Finally, you will probably want to remove any doors from their hinges, especially if they open inward, to ensure that you're able to comfortably work all the way to the edge of the room. When it comes to preparing your work area, be conservative. Spending a little extra time removing items that may not be completely necessary to remove is almost always a better use of time than halting your work later on to, for instance, uninstall a toilet that's in your way. Next, remove any baseboards the small wooden "trim" pieces at the bottom of a wall that run along the edges of your floor. Usually, this can be accomplished by carefully prying with a pry bar, flat head screwdriver, or sturdy putty knife. To prevent damage to your wall, try inserting a small block of wood behind your prying tool as you work the baseboard away from the wall. This keeps your tool from scratching against the wall and provides additional leverage. While you are working on your baseboards, take the opportunity to also remove any outlet covers that could be damaged by your linoleum flooring installation project. After you remove your baseboards, quickly examine your bottoms of your walls near the floor to look for any leftover nails sticking out of the wall. Carefully pull these nails out of the wall with a pair of pliers, the "claw" end of a hammer, or a similar prying tool. If left in, these nails can present problems when attempting to lay your linoleum flat against the wall. Linoleum must be laid over floor that's as close to perfectly smooth and even as possible. If it isn't, the underlying imperfections will eventually be reflected in the linoleum itself, resulting in unsightly bumps, ridges, soft spots, and so on. If you plan to lay your linoleum over the existing floor, check it to make sure that it is level and free of imperfections. If you plan to lay it over the subfloor, remove your existing flooring and check whether the subfloor is in good condition. If your floor or subfloor isn't completely even and level, you may want to try fixing minor issues with the tips below: Concrete floors: Level high spots with a grinder or masonry chisel. Fill in small holes or cracks with additional concrete. Wood floors: Use an embossing leveler to fix minor dents and indentations. For more serious issues, use plywood underlayment (see below). Existing linoleum floors: Repair worn sections of floor or indentations with an embossing leveler (apply with a straightedge trowel). If any sections are damaged or loose, remove the linoleum and work off of the subfloor. Some floors and subfloors just aren't suitable for supporting linoleum flooring either they're too worn or damaged to easily repair or you'd like to keep the floor material for use in other projects. In these cases, it's usually best to use a plywood underlayment to support the linoleum. Cut 1/4 inch (0.63 centimeter) underlayment-grade plywood to fit the floor area you plan to cover with linoleum, then lay this over the existing floor or subfloor. This provides a smooth, even surface for the linoleum to rest on, bypassing the problems of using a damaged or worn floor entirely. For tight seams for your plywood pieces, use a pneumatic stapler about every 8 inches (20.3 cm) along edges. Don't forget that using an underlayment will raise the level of the floor slightly, which may require you to shave off a small amount of material from the bottoms of any doors in the room.