Hardwood Floor Installation in the Gym/Guest Bedroom

Stefan — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 11:33:33 +0000

Installing hardwood floors by myself from start to finish was a great project that I really enjoyed. I used much of the leftover tongue and groove teak hardwood flooring from upstairs to install hardwood floors in the gym/guest bedroom downstairs. First off, no professional hardwood floor installer will recommend installing floors at or below grade, especially in the tropics. The reason behind this is because the high moisture level may cause the floor boards to bow and buckle. I did everything within my power to stop the effect of this because installing hardwood floors below grade is exactly what I did. Here are the precautions I took;

Ventilation Holes in the Subfloor

Sealer on the concrete floor
Half inch wood subfloor
Subfloor framing has holes drilled into it to let the moisture flow out and not puddle
Glued and screwed 3/4 inch plywood and let settle for 6 months before installing tongue and groove
Layered felt paper between plywood and the teak tongue and groove flooring
Sacrificed a goat and a virgin during the full moon last night while crossing my fingers

One of the really cool things about this project was the fact that most of the supplies I used were leftover supplies from other projects, so it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg to complete a Do It Yourself home project (it seems like everything costs at least $1,000). The only supplies I purchased for this project were the sheets of treated plywood. Everything else was here as a result of overestimating supplies for other home projects.

Hardwood Floor Installation

Installing the floors took some forethought regarding how to lay them down. The rule of thumb is to criss-cross your materials; Subfloor framing side-to-side, plywood longways and then the flooring side-to-side again. You also have to measure out your room before you start laying the floors to make sure it is square. This room is about 3/4 of an inch off so I snapped a chalk line at my starting point that made up for that 3/4 an inche to ensure the tongue and groove floors didn’t start getting really crooked halfway through laying them down and then look horribly slanted by the time I made it to the entrance of the room.

Once the first line was snapped and I lined up the first row of boards, your path has been set and it’s time to choose the correct pieces of wood, bang the new row into the grooves of the already installed row, pop in some nails and move on to the next row. I used a 18 inch 2×10 piece of scrap wood to bang the boards into place and my trusty air compressor powered finishing nail gun to tack the boards down. The nails I used were 2 inches long and I nailed through the tongue of the board so the nails would be hidden once the next board was installed. The only two areas you can see nails are the starter boards and the end boards. Once I trim out the walls with runner boards I will putty the nail holes and it will all disappear.

Hardwood Floors Installed - Brazilian Teak Looking Real Nice!

I did the entire job by myself and it took me about 20 hours. It probably took me about 10 hours to frame out the subfloor, shim the uneven spots, cut, screw and glue the plywood and then another 10 hours to install the tongue and groove flooring. If you have experience and the right tools, I bet you could get this job done in half that amount of time.

Here are some of the pictures that I took while the project was under way. The subfloor photos are from 6 months ago and the finish work is from this week.

Help Us Choose Our Tile

Stefan — Sun, 23 May 2010 14:03:25 +0000

We are being very budget conscious with our tile choices downstairs. Uncle Sam hit me with some unexpected taxes now that I have my business in Puerto Rico and Sydney may not be going to college yet, but having a baby isn’t exactly a discount program.

We have been searching for a cool tile for downstairs for a couple weeks now, but aren’t really having any luck finding anything in our budget. We narrowed our choices down to about 6 different tiles that range from porcelain tile to slate. We are going to keep the tile 12”x12” to help reduce the cracking and tiles coming up in the future due to our floor being uneven. The basement was never designed to be apart of the house so the floor wasn’t poured level. Another thing we are going to have to do is strip the concrete polish/sealer up from the floor. From what I understand, if you pour water on concrete and it beads, the mortar you use for the tiles will never stick to the floor and you will waste a lot of time and money.

Help us choose! Which tile do you like the most?

California 2 Puerto Rico » basement

Hardwood Floor Installation in the Gym/Guest Bedroom

Help Us Choose Our Tile