I put down some hard wood and finally laid the floor!

Now wait a minute, that may not be exactly as it sounds! What I mean to say is I finally have finished putting in (or laying) the plank flooring in one of the bedrooms, and yes the wood was hard indeed - solid oak. There are still some other things to do, like the 1/4 round molding, as trim all around the floor to molding edges, but that is nothing compared to all the splinters I have gotten already, and heck that will probably be clear pine. Much less likely to splinter, and easier with which to work.

Now back to Home Depot with two excess boxes of oak flooring (@ $59.80 each plus tax, you can bet I want a refund). I probably needed only one extra box to make sure there was a good measure in case of screwups, but I got 2 being the worry wart I am. Half of the wood in one of the boxes being returned is going back because it was warped so badly in one direction or another it could not be used, some other pieces were cracked (right out of the box), and others cut wrong at the mill. It pays to buy at least 10% extra when working with wood to cope with things just like that.

All the best,
Glenn B

The Floor - and 4 weeks or so later...

...still has my knees, my hips and my lower back all feeling like the icy grip of winter has frozen them painfully in place. I can only wish that I could get some of the glowing warmth promised by the prospect of Al Gore's globally warmed winters, but there does not seem to be much chance of that. It does seem however that I will be enjoying at least another day or two of a warm glow of another sort, that cast by the suns last rays across the richly finished oak floorboards over which I have been kneeling as I hammer away. Yes folks, I still have not finished one small room's (maybe 12x14) worth of flooring. I have been pretty good about keeping at it though, and each weekend over the past 4 or 5 weeks (with the exception of last weekend when I was sicker than a dog) I have been diligently lining up floorboards, cutting them to size, drilling mail holes, then hammering home the nails to put it all together. I may not be doing as good a job as a professional finish carpenter, but I sure am doing as good or better than the fly by night type of carpenter one normally hires from out of the local Pennysaver. I know, I have hired those types before, and my work is better than theirs by a long shot, cheaper too - though I will admit this laying a new floor thing has gotten more expensive than I thought it would be. My latest expense was a new Jig Saw, purchased today for $69. Sure I could have gotten the bottom of the line for $29.99, but that one was obviously a piece of junk. The one I bought may be a piece of junk too, but at least it fakes looking like a fair quality item. All I needed it for was to cut an indent in two floorboards to go around the radiator pipe, and I sure wished I could have found my old one. The fact is I am pretty sure that the old one died a while back and I threw it out. So I needed a new one regardless of doing the floor. Oh well.

The floor is almost finished though. I would have done more than 6 1/2 rows of boards today, but I ran out of nails. By the time I realized that the local hardware store was closed up tight as a clam, and Home Depot was out of the question. Heck I was just at two of them this morning to by the drill, so I would be damned if I was about to go again. Too bad I did not realize I was low on nails, piss poor planning on my part I guess. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. I figure I'll do another 6 or so rows tomorrow. Then one more good day at it and it will be finished. Maybe, just maybe, when I get hoe after visiting my mom at the rehab center tomorrow afternoon, my son will have gotten the nails and finished off most of the job. One can wish.

All the best,
Glenn B

Shopping, Flooring, More Shopping...

...those are the plans for my day, and I woke up late this morning. I am just getting into the swing of things right now so this will need be brief. I am off to Home Depot to pick up a nail gun (has to go faster than drilling pilot holes in oak floorboards then hammering in each nail one at a time with multiple hammer blows, then setting each nail with a nail set.

Then off to buy my wife a nice Christmas present.Yes as usual, I have again waited until the last minute, well at least the last day to get my Christmas shopping finished. No panic though, I know where to go, and what to buy, to make her smile. No it will not be diamonds, nor a cute muscular male slave (both on her wish list - really that is what she wrote down).

Oh well - no more time to write until maybe tonight. Have a joyous Christmas Eve.

All the best,
Glenn B

Flooring...

...can be fun, I guess, maybe if you know what you are doing. For some reason, well I guess there was a reason, I decided to rip out the old oak floor in my son's room to be, and put in a new one. I was going to refinish the old one, but some of the floor boards near the radiator were very stained (as in black instead of a nice medium stained oak), and some of it seemed rotten where the boards joined one another. Of course I had already rented a floor sander, and bought all the refinishing needs before I decided to go and look at flooring costs. When I saw the price of Bruce (brand name) 3/4" thick solid oak, with laminated finish already applied, I almost said whoopee. It was only $2.99 a square foot.

I went home with the sander in the trunk, but I told the wife about the cost of the new wood. Cost to refinish the old wood floor would have been about: $225; cost to put in a whole new wood floor, about $415 to $475. I went back ton the store, this time with Brendan in tow as helper, and dropped off the sander. I got a refund (actually cancellation of the charge for it which Brendan handled); and I bought 160 square feet of the Bruce floor boards. I actually only need about 120 square feet of it, but the extra is good to have in case of bad cuts by me, or imperfect boards in some of the boxes. What I do not use gets returned, and refunded. I will measure three times, so as to only have to cut once for each piece. Yes I know the saying is "Measure Twice, Cut Once", but I can be a spaz when it comes to things like manual labor.

I have already torn out the old floor; did that this morning into this afternoon. Now for a good clean up of the old building cloth (which was under the boards) and dust and nails (which are now all over the room) and old wood (which needs to be cut and tied into bundles for the trash). Then I'll nail down the subfloor where it creaks or has come a bit loose over the years; and after that I'll put down new Asphalt/Felt Building Cloth over the sub floor. Tomorrow, after the new floorboards have acclimated to the temperature and humidity in my house, I'll start to put in the floor boards. I imagine this would be easier with a nail gun, but alas I am old fashioned and I will use a regular hammer and casing (finishing) nails, and I will pre-drill mail holes into the oak. (Yes I have some experience nailing down oak floorboards, only on a small landing before, but I do know oak does crack easily if the nails are not dulled, or nail holes are not pre-driled, and pre-drilling is better). This maybe a few more hours of work for me, but I kind of like doing it this way. Hopefully I will not regret it it because I smash my thumb once or thrice.

Now getting back to one of my earlier points - there must have been some reason as to why I decided to do this spending more money and effort to lay a new floor instead of refinishing the old. Oh yeah, I thought some of the floor boards had rotted. Well guess what, they were only badly discolored, and somewhat separated from the adjoining ones, but not rotted. I am pretty certain though they were well on their way to rotting. I think the black stains were from cat pee, from the previous owner's cats many years ago. More money, more work, but at least now the floor will look really nice - and hopefully not squeak any more.

All the best,
Glenn B