The flooring project is underway

I was finally able to start putting down floors this weekend, and I made as much progress as I had hoped. I started in the family room because a lot of our furniture is waiting to be delivered. We didn't want to bring them all in then have to move them all out to do the floors.

The project started with tool preparation. The first picture shows two saws that I needed for the project. Not pictured is my circular saw that I bought last week. I borrowed the compound mitre saw (the one of the left) from a coworker. It was easy to setup, simply putting it on two saw horses and plugging it in. That saw is used to cut the boards to the right length (i.e. at the start of a row and/or the end of a row). The saw on the right is a table saw, and is used to cut the boards to the right width. I haven't used it yet because I started with a full width board on the first wall.

You'll see some other tools I needed in the other pictures look for the Bostitch stapler (to nail the boards to the floor), the mallet that accompanies it, a hand sweeper (to make sure there's no debris on or under boards), and tapping blocks (basically scraps used to tap boards snugly together). Other important items not pictured are eye and ear protection (saws and stapler are very loud), a finishing nailer (for nailing boards where the stapler can't reach), an air compressor (to power the stapler and nailer), a tape measure and a carpenter's square (both for measuring), a carpet knife (for cutting tar paper), a sharpie (for marking where to cut boards), a chalk line (for marking the location of joists and the "dead zone"), and a pry bar (for making sure the end boards fit snugly with the last full board in that row).

The day started with a lot of measuring. Jen was able to help with it. A lot of my reading said to make sure to start up against the longest outside wall so everything is parallel, but we have a long hallway that will have boards going the full length. We decided that we want to make sure that was the straightest line. So, we picked a line based on a row of subflooring that runs the length of the hallway. Then, we used Excel to calculate how many boards (width wise) we'd need to complete the room, dividing the width of the room by the width of each board. We were actually more interested in the remainder, because it would tell us how wide the end board would be. We basically wanted to avoid it being a sliver. It turns out that the remainder was something like 0.80, so we were able to start with a full length board. The last measurement we needed to make was to determine where the "dead zone" was. I put two boards end to end, starting at the "end wall" (in the direction where I was progressing each row). A third board would have gone beyond the wall. I then measured 8 inches from the end of the second board and drew two lines perpendicular to the wall those 8 inches apart. This area was the dead zone. If I started a row with a board that fell in that area, it meant that I'd have a board on the end wall less than 8 inches long, which is bad because the tongue would split.

After the measuring, we put down the tar paper (the black stuff you see in the pictures), which acts as a moisture barrier. It also has parallel lines on it which helped with the early alignment. Some people say to staple it down, but I didn't bother.

After checking measurements about 5 times (I really wanted it to be parallel) it was time to put down the first board. I put down the board and made sure there was at least a 1/2 inch expansion gap. That's so the wood can expand in humid weather, and not push up against the wall. If it did so, it would cause buckling in the floor. It was now time to fire my first air-powered nail. I have to say, air powered tools are AWESOME. If I could air-power my toothbrush, I would. I fired a few test shots into some scrap pieces to make sure the air pressure was right. That was fun. Then I face nailed the first row of boards. In hindsight, I slightly screwed up here. I knew I had to use the nail gun because the stapler wouldn't fit (the staple holder pushes against the wall). What I didn't realize was that I could have done what's called a blind nail (I think). You basically do that by nailing into the tongue of the board. Instead, I face nailed into the top of the board. Face nailing is unavoidable in some places, but I don't think I needed it there. Anyway, it means we need to get some wood puddy to fill in the holes. After the first row was in, I measured again to make sure it's parallel. It was. So, it was time to go to the second row. I knew I was supposed to stagger the joints, so I cut a board into a smaller piece about a foot long. The stapler was able to fit this time and it was time to give it a test run. It took a few whacks to get the hang of it. I thought you just needed to tap the button with the mallet, but if you do that, not enough air gets in to drive the staple all the way in. Then, you have a fun decision. Pull out the stapler, or drive it in by hand. Both options suck, so I tried to make sure I put a little muscle in each hit. For the whole floor, I think I miss-hit maybe 4 times. I think I have the hang of it now.

I haven't really mentioned the cuts or the sweeping. I've read that dust and debris equals squeaks. So, I was meticulously sweeping. Before I'd pickup a board from the box, I'd first sweep its destination on the floor. Then, I'd take the board out of the box and sweep it to make sure the grooves and tongues were clean. Then, if the board needed to be cut, I'd take the sweeper with me to make sure the sawdust stayed in the cutting area. Then, I'd sweep the destination again just to be sure. It's probably overkill, but I'll be happy when it doesn't squeak.

I learned a few cutting tricks during the process. Trick one is to make sure that if your start board needs a groove for the next board to measure with the groove against the wall. That way you end up with a board that's the right length, and that has a groove on it. On the end wall, since you need a tongue to go into the next-to-last board, you measure with the tongue against the wall. I also learned that when you cut a board to use as a start piece, the other end of that board makes a nice end piece at some point. So, don't throw it away.

It's definitely a tedious process, but you start to get into a grove after a while. That is, until you get to an interesting part of the floor. So far, I've had to deal with two types of interesting parts. One was the floor vents. We decided to get flush-mount bamboo registers to go with our floors. I'll get to those in a later post, but I needed to make sure I left room for them to be installed. That meant some interesting shapes of wood for the first 3 rows. The next interesting part was the hearth.

As part of the early measurements, we made sure that we wouldn't have slivers up against the hearth. So, the board at the start of the hearth was basically a full one. I just had to use the table saw (oh yeah, I did use it) to cut the tongue off of the first 18 inches (width of the hearth) of the board. I then slid that under the 5/8 inch undercut that I had the fabricator put in. I'm so glad I did that because I didn't want to have to install any molding around the hearth. I didn't think it would look really good, and I think this way looks awesome. In this picture, I've progressed a bit farther down the hearth and you can see how the boards go under it just a bit.
One other trick I learned (I read about this one) was that you need to pick up boards out of random boxes. Otherwise, you'll start seeing patches of different colors. I thought all of our boards would be the same color, but there are some slight variations. In this picture, you can see the 9 boxes that I had opened. Whenever I needed a new board, I'd take it out of a different box. Here, you can also see how far I progressed for the weekend. I basically got to the right of the boxes by Saturday evening, and did the rest on Sunday. The prep time and a few distractions (shoveling, neighborhood party) took up some of my time on Saturday. Sunday was a bit delayed because I was distracted by Michigan's terrible showing against Iowa, because of church, and because Jen wanted to watch the oscars.

I woke up this morning to wait for the guy to show up to install the backsplash. So, I was able to finish the last two feet or so of the exposed tar paper. I have about 40 inches left to do in this room, but it's now going to extend into the hallway. So, I have some prep work to do back there before I can proceed. Here's how the hearth looks, as it's the most "finished" part of the project. Someday after I have all of the floors down, we'll have to put baseboards back up to give the rest of the room that finished look. I still haven't decided if I'm going to do that or if I'm going to pay someone.

You might want to use the front door

I don't think I've ever posted pictures of our basement. I think we'll finish the basement someday, but it's a few years off. So, this is the closest you'll get to seeing it without visiting. The contractors are out today trying to take care of our mold problem. Here's the progress so far. There's a bit of moisture, apparently coming from the door, that they need to take care of. I really hope they fix all of this because it'll keep me from doing the floors. I don't want to put expensive wood flooring down over wet subfloor. That'd just be begging for more ants and mold. It's projects like this one that make me miss condo life (and cement - water proof - subfloors).

The counters and hearth are installed

Tomorrow, the plumber is coming by to install the faucet and that kind of stuff. The backsplash should be going in, and I think the oven and stove. We also had the handles for the cabinets delivered today, so that'll be a fun project for me. I can also put in the pendant lights above the stove (or the hole for it).

This should be a busy week

I had the day off yesterday, so I was able to finish some painting that would have been harder to do once the contractors progressed. I am a pretty sloppy painter, but that's not a big deal when I'm standing on subfloors or counters that are about to be replaced. So, I was able to go pretty quickly. Just yesterday, I took out the blinds in the family room, sealed up a few cracks in the molding around the window casings, primed the new drywall, and finished all of the painting on the first floor (fireplace, 2nd coat in family room, butler's pantry, and kitchen windows). In this picture, you can see the fireplace in its current state.

So far today, I've had 2 sets of contractors out. One was the demo crew to take out the counter tops. Here's how it looks right now.

I also had the exterminator come out. It looks like I was able to take care of the immediate ant problem, but we might have a water issue with the back door that we'll have to take care of. Carpenter ants like wet wood, and we only want one set of Carpenters to visit in the future. The mold guy is on his way now to tell me what we'll need to do with regards to that. He'll probably be ripping out and replacing the subfloor. I'm not sure, but we might need some trip work done on the door itself. It's a little side project that we hadn't anticipated, but I'd rather tackle it now than deal with mold and bugs for the foreseeable future.

The counter tops are supposed to show up around 1 today and the same guys are bringing the hearth. The kitchen and fireplace (sans mantel) could easily be all done by tomorrow evening. If the mold problem gets resolved, that means it's just about time to lay the wood!

Kill, Kill, Kill

I went to Ace this morning to buy some primer and some brooms. I ended up walking past the tool sale section, and saw the circular saw that the contractor had. I had seen it at home depot when I bought my recently new (corded) saw, but it was $195. I didn't want to spend that much for something I don't intend to use after this year. The one I ended up buying Thursday was a $140 one from Dewalt. Not bad at all, but not contractor style. Anyway, Ace had the contractor one for $95. Some of you may think, "the wife isn't going to be happy with you buying another saw," but those who think that don't know Jen. She buys everyone about 4 shirts for Christmas, lets them pick the one they like best, then returns the other 3. So, she was actually quite proud of me. I still have to return it though. Oh, I also bought a replacement screwdriver (for my cracked Mikita and my returned Rigid). It was a $25 Mikita, only $25 because they didn't have batteries for it. I already had them for my old one. Jen was quite proud of me for that too.

I just finished using the new awesome saw, and ripped up most of the remaining floors. I literally have about 3 sq ft left to remove. Before those, I ripped out boards by the back door and discovered that we're landlords. Under them, in a nest the size of a tennis ball was a wad of Carpenter ants. I jumped into the car and headed back to Ace. I bought 3 styles of ant spray. There are still a few wriggling legs, but I don't see them thriving in this environment. I'm not sure, but I might have to get an exterminator in or someone to replace the subfloor there. Anyway, here's what the nest looks like now. You don't pay the rent, you get your asses EVICTED!

Update and projects for the long weekend.

I meant to post more frequently, but I've been spending most of my time vacuuming dust. It hasn't really helped make it more comfortable, but we're almost past all of the dust.

You can see the kitchen in this picture. The electrician is finished with the kitchen. Since I last wrote, he has put 6 can lights in the kitchen (you can see two in the upper right of the picture). Above the island, he ripped out the big florescent light and put in 3 boxes for the pendant lights that will be going in. We wanted to wait until everything else was done because we don't want the lights to break. Oh, you can see that the island counter top is also gone. I was just at the fabricator and we were going over the templates for the granite slabs we had picked out. He's probably going to cut those Monday, and will be out on Tuesday to install them. We have some work to do this weekend to empty out the drawers and cabinets. The backsplash might go up on Wednesday, and grouted Thursday. Appliances should go in Friday. Hopefully, by this time next weekend, the kitchen (minus the floors) will basically be done.

This is the fireplace. The drywall is up and all taped. When I was at the fabricator's, we were going over how the slabs we picked out will be able to work for the face of the fireplace, the hearth, and the box for the fireplace wood. Apparently, we were supposed to pick out 3/4" slabs, but picked out 1 1/4" ones. They are a bit smaller than the 3/4" slabs so we have to stretch it a bit more than we expected. Anyway, the electrician is done with this part too. He put two low-voltage cans above the fireplace for some art that we have. It was impressive that he was able to run the switch for the cans over toward the laundry room. The hearth should be coming in Tuesday, which will let me start the floors in that room. I asked him to undercut the hearth a bit so the wood can be installed under it. It'll make it look good without requiring molding or quarter round. I'm hoping to start that project next weekend.

Here's a look at the butler's pantry. You can see that the drywall is up and all taped. That helped add to the dust problem. The electrician also made sure we have outlets and electrical for the upper cabinets (which are supposed to have lights in them) and beverage fridges. He also put a can in the little hallway there. We have ordered the cabinets, and plan to use some leftover stone from the fireplace for the counter top. This part of the project is about 3 weeks from being finished because we have to wait about 2 weeks for the cabinets to get finished.

Last weekend, I ripped out old floors in the back hallway, office, and two closets. I figured out that I bought a very weak circular saw. I used the one the contractor left behind, and was able to finish much faster. I returned my saw and drill a few days ago and bought a new saw with a cord this time. I should be able to rip out the last of the floors this weekend.

Day 1 with the contractors.

The contractors came in today to start on three projects. In the first project, we're turning what is essentially a second pantry into half of a second pantry, and using the rest of the space for a butler's pantry. We already have a wine fridge and a beverage fridge for the space, but they can't go in until the wall is removed and pushed back. You can see here that they've already removed the wall. I'm standing in the dining room looking thru the removed wall, into the family room. Once that wall is built, they're going to do some electrical work before we bring in the cabinet guy. We still haven't paid him because we haven't decided on the cabinets, but we're close. We thought we had it all figured out until we went to pick out our slabs for the fireplace face and kitchen countertops. Turns out, we will have extra from the fireplace, so we might use that in the butler's pantry. It's a good thing because we really like the stone we picked out.



Speaking of fireplace, the second project is filling in the annoying TV hole. I thought about doing this one myself, but it's just too much drywall work. As you can see, they ripped out some dated detail work, and the old tile face and hearth. basically all of that exposed stuff on the lower half will be covered by the granite we selected. The hearth and the firewood box will as well. We weren't going to do the firewood box initially, but because we had to buy two slabs (they're smaller than normal granite slabs), we'll have some left over. We figured we should use it ourselves rather than let the fabricator sell it to someone else. Actually not all of the lower half will be granite. We still have to pick out a mantel, and that will go right above the granite. We want to get the granite in first so we know what style mantel to pursue. At the moment, we're thinking that a piece of reclaimed wood would look cool (and be green).

The third, and easily the hardest to live with, project is the kitchen. We're having new countertops, appliances (you can see the boxes to the right), lighting, sink, faucet, backsplash, handles, and window treatments installed.

There's a lot, but we're thinking that it'll go somewhat quickly because we're not replacing the cabinets. There will be a little bit of woodwork on the island because we want the seating area to extend a bit farther (long Aquino legs) and that'll require that we install corbels.

So far, they've removed the oven (and microwave!) and the range top. So, it looks like we're going to be eating out for a while.

You can also see the flooring removal I did this past weekend.

I'll try to post picture updates every day. They really did a lot more today than I thought they would, so I'm expecting there to be visible progress every day. The contractor said we should be done in about 2-3 weeks. Of course, I just jinxed us with that visible progress comment.

We've only just begun

I've been a little bit behind on posting, but I'll bring you up to date quickly. I have no choice because the pace is beginning to really speed up.

I started the flooring project the weekend of the 24th. It was a nice weekend to do it, given that there was no football to distract me. Here's the before picture. Notice the carpet, hardwood floors, and the baseboards. Also notice the direction the floors are facing. They're wrong because they should go perpendicular to the floor joists, but they're parallel. I decided to start in the foyer area because when I start laying the floors, I want to avoid having to switch the direction of the flooring's tongue and groove system. By starting along the wall in the upper right corner of the picture, I should only have to turn around 2 -4 times for the whole first floor. If I started in our family room, I'd have to turn around about 6 times. Not fun.

After the first weekend, here's where the project stands. Ripping up the carpet was pretty easy, and I've done that before. I think I had that done in about an hour. Ripping out the baseboards was a bit more difficult because I was trying to save them. After chipping a few, I realized that Jen is going to want new baseboards someday (soon) and there's no point in trying to take them off gently. That part of the project went a lot faster after that. Then, I had the part I was dreading... ripping up the hardwood. I've also done this before, but I knew there wasn't an easy way to do it. Luckily, I've already learned some things about the process.

The main problem is the staples that are left behind. Check out the picture here to get an indicator of what they look like after the floor is pulled up. You might not be able to see how many there are there, but trust me, there are a LOT. I'd guess that for each sheet of OSB in the subfloor, there are roughly 200 staples.

I've been working on trying to pull up the flooring with as many staples in tact, but it's not perfect at all. Ideally, the underside of the flooring will end up looking like a used Biore strip, with the bulk of the "blackheads" sticking to what you've just pulled up. If you do more lifting than prying, it seems to help, but it also seems to depend on where the flooring was. Higher-traffic areas seem to come up a lot easier. So, I'm not looking forward to the office, but the bathroom should be a breeze (rim shot sound effect). Try as I may though, there's still a ton to pull.

It's easily the most grueling part of the process, taking it out on your hands, back, and mind. I found that it's best to tackle it one sheet of OSB at a time. If you go in a random pattern, you're going to find that you miss a lot, and if you do you're going to have squeaky floors when you put them over a staple.

I also bought a new tool for the job. A guy at Home Depot recommended it, and I'm glad he did. This tool is basically a specialized set of pliers that are meant to cut nails. The rounded head works out well because you just grab the staple and pry back. I'm able to pull about 1 every two seconds. The old way, using the pry bar, took roughly five seconds per staple.

Also, check out the size of these suckers. Each is about 1 1/2" long. Some of them break and basically become nails sticking out of the floor, so I try to keep Jen out of the rooms on which I'm working.

The next worst part of the job is carrying the pulled up boards to the garage. After the first weekend, I had one whole wall of the garage covered. I did figure out something during my second weekend of work. The wood stacks up better if you stand on the recently pulled sheet (STAPLES DOWN) and wiggle around a bit. This flattens out the remaining staples, and means I can stack two sheets for every one I could without doing so.

I finished up the kitchen this past weekend, and had to rent what's called a Tow Kick Saw. It really worked well, allowing me to cut flush to the cabinets (we're leaving them in place) and avoid much chiseling. It is kindof a beast though, and you really have to muscle it because it has a tendency to kick hard to the right. Also, make sure the blade stops spinning before you set it down. It has a safety latch, but if you set it down on the right (read: wrong) angle, it'll also swing around to the right looking for toes to mangle. I learned that the hard way, but my cat-like reflexes saved me from a trip to the emergency room. That reminds me, I still need to get a tetanus shot.