Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood Flooring

Materials

3/4" Oak Handscraped 5" Planks "ButterScotch"

Tools

Air Compressor
Flooring Nailer
Table Saw
Jig Saw

Labor

Planning: Weeks!

Installation: 10 Days

Cost: 8.50/sf (including labor)

We spent many days going through big box stores attempting to select our hardwood floors.  We chose to have 3/4" solid flooring, so that was our starting point.  I wanted the more distressed look, like a wire-brushed finish, that allowed for more wear and tear.  My wife wanted to go with the handscraped look.  Since she spends far more time with our 2 boys than I do, she got what she wanted ;)

The flooring was in stock at a local warehouse, and required us to pick it up.  Since we wanted hardwood throughout the first floor, minus the wet areas, and was about $1/sf lower than our budget, we were able to purchase additional flooring to cover our upstairs landing at a later time.  The boards were all brought inside the living room on a Friday and had the fireplace going.
This allowed the boards to acclimate to the living room and have the moisture content of the wood equal the humidity.  The boxes were plastic sealed and then wrapped in cardboard.  We opened quite a few of them to allow the air to get to it and marveled at the boards.

Installation started on Monday, and the contractor was able to get about 4 feet away from the wall.  They used carpenter pencils as spacers around the edges to allow for expansion of the floors.  It is a cheap and easy method of maintaining a 1/4" gap throughout the install.

By Day 2 the flooring was to the French Doors.

And by Day 3 they were to the entryway to the Living Room.

The entryway took 2 days since the boards had to be cut both inside and outside to continue the flow of the boards.
















The front entrance to the kitchen took another day as multiple cuts were needed to get the boards to properly line up.

With the flipping of the kitchen, and the extension of the extension of the living room, we increased the sight lines and produced a quasi open concept while still defining the rooms. It made the flow of the entire ground floor that much simpler, allowing the children to play in a separate room, while allowing us parents to have some level of "adult" time.

Dining Room

The final piece was ensuring a viable transition from our hardwood floors to our ceramic tile "wood floor" in our Mud Room, Laundry, and Downstairs Bathroom.