Yes, you can install your own hardwood floor
We got the floor started today. Mass came first, then Jenny and I went to brunch at my parents’ house to see my sister Sarah (and have some brunch, of course 🙂 ). We came home so that I could get changed, then I went to the funeral home for an old friend who died early. While I was there, Jenny bundled the padding and took it outside, then brought the shop vac downstairs and swept up the years of dust, leftover staples, and shredded bits of padding. She was just finishing up when I got home, so I got changed into work clothes and got the compressor and staple/brad gun ready. To keep us from going entirely insane, I put the compressor outside and covered it with a trash can to protect it from the weather (that little pancake compressor is LOUD). Someday, I’ll get a non-oil-free compressor that runs quietly. I’m glad I have it for this project, though.
The first thing we had to do was to snap a chalk line at a point that was the width of one piece of flooring plus 3/8″ away from the wall. We decided to keep the orientation that was in the living room, and I decided to start on the easiest wall in terms of cuts. One of the things that most flooring installation guidelines seem to recommend is to undercut door jambs, to avoid having to do scribe cuts. Well, I refuse to do that. All of the other flooring in this house is scribe cut around obstacles, and I refuse to cut wood here to make things “easier” for me. This, of course, means more work, but I won’t feel like I’m betraying the house’s builders in the process.
The first row went in pretty quickly, with only a few bumps needed that were taken care of with a file. Of course, this room is full of angles, and many of the pieces will need to be cut in various ways. After we got moving, the rows started to come in a little more quickly. We took a break for dinner at around 6PM or so. We decided to go somewhere, just to get out of the work zone for a bit. We came back a little before 7:30PM, and got back to work. Jenny turned on the Grammy’s so that we could watch and listen to that while working. She had brought me enough wood to work for a while, so she went to wrap up in a warm blanket while I finished the rows that I could. I was getting tired, so it was getting time for me to stop.
The end result is that we have about 40 square feet of flooring down. It doesn’t look like that much, but it is also the widest section of the room. Due to a meeting that I have to attend tomorrow evening, work on the floor is probably going to be a no-op. That means that my next workday for the floor is going to be Tuesday evening. If we had a full day of work today, we probably would have manged to get a little further on the installation, but oh well. It looks pretty good, though, except for all of the mistakes that I see. I guess that’s the curse of DIY–one always sees their own mistakes. 🙂 I just hope that the room is mostly square when we get to the other side, or else I’m going to be doing some odd things to make it look square.
Oh! I almost forgot. Pictures here!
jonathan
