You may be in luck, depending how your laminate is installed. Many of them are tongue in grove floating over a padding layer and only secured around the perimeter, sometimes with little beads of adhesive along the tongue/groove that would fairly easily be disrupted. If this is the case, you can re-arrange your laminate planks to fill/shift the island hole, using extra from where you don't want it under the new cabinets! Best bet is to call in an opinion of a flooring installer. A skilled professional or DIYer can do this so it's indistinguishable from a virgin layout, with NO sign that the island has been shifted, in the flooring pattern! This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, Mar 26, 14 at 9:28

So, I just talked to the remediation contractor who quoted me $1200. He told me he's licensed and bonded etc and has been doing this work for 30 years. He had been out and looked at my floor a few days ago and says that on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being worst case scenario, mine is about a quarter (1/4). I suppose he could be wrong, but I feel better now. Going to go ahead tomorrow or Monday and pull up all the warped section, then probably have him come by to do a check and maybe test before his flooring guy comes to give me an estimate on installation. I'm taking into consideration too that the plumber who has a good reputation with several people down the street is the one who referred me to him.

It is in your heart, your mind, and your soul. My daughter really has color in her. She was adopted from Russia and there was nothing bleaker then that orphanage. She was immediately transfixed on color. Really. As soon as she could stand I put her on the back deck in her diaper and placed a whole bunch of colors in empty ice cube trays. She intuitively knew which colors went together. Her paintings were seriously better than a lot of modern art I had or had seen. I continued to provide her with paper on easels as soon as she could stand up. I called the local town newspaper and they came by and seriously she wound up on the front page of the small paper. At about five I could show her a color of something and she could go to the many colors at home depot and pick out the exact color. She makes every excuse not to become a colorist even after I showed her how much I paid for six hours and wound up using my daughter's choices. You should look up Mary Morrissey. She starts out by saying we have to push away what we perceive are obstacles (money, divorce, children, health) and see what we want to happen. I found her because I can no longer practice speech pathology in schools the way I want to and the way I know is right. It came to me that I want to be a life coach because I love bringing out what people are meant to do and what would make them really happy. That is when Mary Morrissey popped up on my computer. I put it out there in the universe and there it was. Am I a life coach yet? No but I listen to the inspirations and I know I will. I keep visualizing what I want and I know it will come. I would pay you with a degree or not. lol I wish you lived near me.

So is lacquer better or worse than polyurethane? I know the guy used lacquer on my cabinets. When we had to refinish one of the old bathroom cabinets he told us what he used. Benjamin Moore said only 2 states carry it, Oklahoma and Texas. That tells me it should NOT be used. It is banned in other states. It sounds like I am ready to sand? I can quit trying to get the glossy parts off where the cracks are. (Where the 2 planks meet.) They will just sand off? I moved the TV cabinet away from the wall. That wall used to have a built in entertainment center with doors and drawers, but my TV was wider, so we removed the entertainment center. We found the original flooring had not been lacquered or polyurethane where the old cabinets had been. We can see that the wood turned more yellow and darker in the rest of the room. The room is huge and includes the kitchen. 42' x 28' plus 12' x 4' hallway. I am sanding around the perimeter first except for the hall and kitchen area. Then I will move the aquarium, couches, and TV cabinet back in place against the walls. They are all sitting on soft sliders so they will not scratch the floor. Then I can sand the rest of the floor. I have no place to move the furniture so it will have to be done in sections. Once the sanding is finished and the floor is clean, I don't know if I can finish the floor in sections. Can that be done? Thanks.