Better Than Half Way?

I think that's how best to describe our current progress on laying down the hardwood strip flooring: we're better than half way. I had hoped to get all of the boards that required the rental hammer done this weekend. But we didn't. This despite Jenn and I both working consecutive 10+ hour days, breaking only for lunch and dinner.

Let me say, laying strip flooring is hard work. Not only is it physically demanding, but it is time consuming. Each row is only 2 1/4" wide. That means a 12' room requires 64 rows of strip. I think, realistically, we couldn't lay down more than about 200-300 sf a day. Plus, obstacles such as stairs, doorways, walls, and beams add even more time.

The best way to work is in pairs. Jenn and I took turns 'racking' and nailing. Racking is where you lay out the boards before nailing them. You want to make sure the end-boards seams don't end up too close together or make a recognizable pattern such as a 'stair-step' or 'H'. However, I found that while Jenn was racking for me while I nailed, constantly staying in the crouching position was hell on my back. As a result, I think Jenn did more nailing that I did.

We're going to get the rental nailer again this coming weekend and try very hard to finish laying that floor down. I think we can make it. I think.


Here's Jenn doing all the work...


Here's Me. Notice the ear protection. That hammer is fricken LOUD!

Floors Are Going In!!!

We are laying down the floors this weekend. As I type, we are a little less than half way done. We'll try and finish laying them tomorrow...

Here's a pic of the flooring before we started. This is about half of the wood.

One year ago...

Here is a picture taken a year ago this week.



It was really cold and the East Wind was blowing hard. Then, it started to snow. A bunch of the snow blew right in to our 'sunroom'. Brrrr.

Here is the sunroom ceiling taken a few days ago.

Working not Blogging...

I've been pretty busy over the holidays and didn't take much time to log my daily activity. But, I can now say that I got a lot done over the past 2 weeks. Probably the biggest milestone was taking delivery of the flooring. I got 960sf of select grade 2 1/4" t&g red oak from Crosscuts. Very nice! I can hardly wait to get this nailed down, but I've still got a few things I need to take care of first.

I worked on the sunroom ceiling a lot. I got the beams filled, sanded and stained. Whew, that was a lot of work! They don’t look absolutely perfect: the stain is a little inconsistent in parts and you can see some scratches from the sander. But, overall, it looks pretty good. I’m happy enough.

This Saturday (New Years Day) I got the trim in place on the skylight and Sunday I trimmed the triangular windows. I will still need to go back and sand and stain this new trim. Tonight I hope to get the trim in the bathroom skylights done. After that I need to trim the window over the main stairs. Then, I can focus on the stairs and ultimately the floors. I’m going to push the flooring back another week so that I’ll have plenty of time to prep the stairs, etc.

pictures soon.