Hardwood Floors

I took a couple days vacation this past week to install a hardwood floor in one of our bedrooms. All-in-all, it went pretty well. We worked slow, and started late, but managed to finish it. Thursday, I tore the carpet and pad out and took down all the molding. This was pretty simple, but nasty in some ways. The carpet and pad were pretty dusty when pulled up and as usual I stuck myself on one of the nail strips holding it down.

The molding wasn't completely cooperative. I cracked a couple of pieces pulling them off the wall when nails stuck too well. Also while pulling one of the 12' sections off the wall, I put in a pretty healthy ding in the ceiling. A couple of the pieces were jammed into the side walls and really took some tugging to get out without damaging the walls too bad. All of it was finally pulled off and taken down to the basement for nail removal and refinishing. BTW, why is when trying to pull the brads out the back using Vise-Grips, the brads tend to break, but if I pull them out using a vise to hold the brads, they come out just fine?

The last task for the day was to pull all the leftover nails, staples and foam. There were some spots that looked like someone punched a hole from underneath. I used a chisel to cut those places down finally vacuuming the entire room. After rolling up the carpet and pads (and getting stuck by a couple more staples) the day's work was done.

The next day, Friday, was spent getting the various tools and such together and starting on the actual installation. We laid down a layer of asphalt paper first. The first row starts with a heating vent in the floor. I think when I cut the hardwood strip to fit the hole, it warped which made my first row crooked. I had to pull it up and replace it. This also happened with the first floor I did last year. I put in another strip, this time getting it straight, but slightly angled from the wall. I decided to leave it, figuring straight was more important that a slight angle. The angle I could fix by gluing in a thin strip later.

Once the first and second row were in, the rest went pretty quickly. My wife spent a little extra time picking and choosing boards to fix which meant we only had to cut off a total of maybe a foot or so for the entire 160 sq. ft.

Most of the floor went pretty quickly, but things slowed down at the entrance. The entrance door to the room is at a 45 degree angle which meant several boards had to be cut to fit there and I used another board as a threshold leading to the hallway. Because of the angles of the walls and doors the air-powered floor nailer I borrowed from a friend wouldn't fit.

In addition to the 45 degree angled door the last couple of rows also led into the closet. In addition to the floor-nailer (Ramsond RMM3) were much more difficult since I used a brad-nailer into the edge as much as possible. At one point, I didn't angle the brads enough, and they came out under the tongue. I used my Dremel to grind some relief notches in the next board for clearance. There were a few boards, especially in the closet, that required being face-nailed.

We finally finished the floor and cleaned up things by Sunday night. I still have to put the molding up. One note is that I measure the room as about 160 sq. ft. not counting angled in the door and closet walls which cut down a few square feet. We only used seven 22 sq. ft. boxes to totally cover the floor. My wife was very picky in selecting the boards for each row and we rarely had to trim to fit. That saved us about $150 in wood.

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Problems
There were a few problems that came up in no particular order or importance:

Not getting the first straight and aligned correctly again. Reinstalled and settled for not completely correct.

Not hitting nailer hard enough and nails weren't completely set. Had to pull board up and grind out nails.

Nailing into knot and splitting wood. Chiseled out broken wood and renailed.

Cut wood too short. Glued piece to fit.

Some boards were too warped or otherwise damaged to use. Some we just didn't use and others we were able to cut bad sections out.

Tools used
Air compressor, Ramsond Air Floor Nailer, Hitachi Brad Nailer, DeWalt Mitre Saw, Grizzly Band Saw, Dremel Rotary Tool; assorted hand tools including handsaws, hammers, chisels, nail set, pry-bars, Vise-Grips, utility knife, tape measure, staight-edge.