January 4, 2007

Le Nouveau Plancher - Laying It Down

Once the boards were cleaned and prepped, we were ready to start laying them down. We rented a floor nailer and air compressor from Total Tool Rental, for a totally high price – DIY is still expensive after all. The compressor is large, heavy and loud. The nailer however provided a very satisfying action when hit with the soft mallet (provided). THUNK! And a two inch nail was driven in instantly through the board and subfloor, at a 45 degree angle. Nice. We cut the first board to size, laid it down, THUNK THUNK THUNK, and there it was. Then came the next. We had to gently coax the board into place with another soft mallet, encouraging the tongue and groove to get along, that this was what they were designed for after all, and to try to squeeze down that gap as much as we could before nailing the board into place.

The coaxing techniques developed – G would stand on one end of the board while I would knock the other end into place, and THUNK THUNK THUNK we had it. But multiply that by 500 square feet (roughly) and this takes a while. We worked out the division of labor better in the second day of nailing, with G cutting the boards to size and feeding them to me as I nailed them down. We did get pretty quick with it by the end, but I don’t see any future for either of us as floor people.

Bottom line is, the floors look great, a whole new aspect is visible now on the lower level. We are super excited now to keep building. We blocked out where the island will be with ply, and the kitchen cabinets against the wall, to save on the floor boards we put down. But this shows clearly the footprint of our kitchen, and we can finally feel the dimensions in place – space seems generous. It’s going to be a great room.

We still have wood leftover and are thinking about putting it down on the lower level hallway. This will tie together the front and back of the lower level.

Posted by Peter at 8:16 AM | Comments (1)

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