My new floor install

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D16Civic

Matt
VIP
Recently closed on this place and got to work. First on the list was removing the cat-piss stained carpet and pad, removing some cheap laminate floors in 2 bedrooms, tearing out all the doors and trim, which were all mis-matched, and scrubbing every wall surface and then priming and painting.

After weighing our options for flooring surfaces, we decided on unfinished solid oak over carpet, bamboo, or any type of prefinished solid or engineered hardwood products. As I am a do-it-myself type of guy, and considering the prefinished products we liked were in the neighborhood of 5-6 bucks a sq. ft, we just couldn't pass it up. Either that or I'm a glutton for punishment....

We decided on hardwood in the living room, the 3 bedrooms, and a common hallway, for a grand total of approximately 700 square feet, and I purchased the materials from Home Depot at $1.89/sq. ft.

First the before pics....Note the orange shag carpet that I couldn't convince my wife to spare.

Please disregard the idiot in the pictures.
 

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And a few things I needed for the install.....

Edit: not pictured is the pnuematic flooring stapler, rented from HD.
 

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And the end results...........minus stain and polyurethane, to come this week.
 

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Looks good, nice to see you took out that stupid little wall at the doorway, I hate those things, its like its there for 1 reason only, to place your keys on.
 
Thanks Jeff. Pics don't really do it justice. Actually came out better than I had hoped, although it's a big job for 1 guy.

As for the mini-wall, it is much better without, although I had nothing to do with it. Went to play golf for a day and I came back and it was gone. Wife got adventurous with the sawzall. We also widened the opening between the living room and kitchen and added a pass-through that will be getting some sort of a shelf or granite top on it.

The level of filth that these people were living in is astounding.
 
Looks great! We need to get our oak floors refinished. Ours are super old and are random plank Oak. Hopefully I'll have someone start the refinishing next month because I just do not posses the patience nor the skill to do that. Good work!
 
i have hardwood laminate in my house.. i cant do real wood, i have 2 big dogs that live inside and they'd scratch the living hell out of it.. lol
 
looks good
i have to throw up some pics of my house progress when i get a chance

Thanks. One thing about home ownership is you finish one project and roll right into another. Once the floors are done, I'll be hanging doors and then doing all the trim throughout the house. Then it's the bathroom, then some sort of a kitchen floor. Then something else, etc. etc. etc.

Looks great! We need to get our oak floors refinished. Ours are super old and are random plank Oak. Hopefully I'll have someone start the refinishing next month because I just do not posses the patience nor the skill to do that. Good work!

Thanks. I had some old wood floors refinished about 10 years ago and they turned out great. I think I paid in the neighborhood of 2.50/ sq. ft. One thing about wood floors is that they will last forever with a little care. Often times longer than the house. On a project like this, patience is definitely more important than skill.

i have hardwood laminate in my house.. i cant do real wood, i have 2 big dogs that live inside and they'd scratch the living hell out of it.. lol

Yeah I understand. We have 1 big dog and 1 8 year old human. I'm not sure what's worse sometimes. The dog was the biggest factor in why we didn't do carpet. Too much dirt and hair. You'd be suprised how well wood floors will hold up after 3 coats of polyurethane though.



Got em stained today. Nothing like 12 hours sanding and staining. Again, I rented the sander from the Depot, did 1 pass with an 80 grit medium, switched to a 100-120 fine, then vacuumed up all my dust. Spent the next 2 hours on hand and knee tack clothing, then another 90 minutes wiping the whole floor down with mineral spirits, then 4 hours staining. Wipe on, let stand for 10 minutes, then wipe off the excess. The color is Minwax Red Mahogany as picked by the wife. Planning on starting with poly on Thursday.
 

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Looks great! We need to get our oak floors refinished. Ours are super old and are random plank Oak. Hopefully I'll have someone start the refinishing next month because I just do not posses the patience nor the skill to do that. Good work!
talk to as many people as you can
i talked to every contractor i know and most came back with the same name
the guy came and told me he would take my money, it wouldnt look good when it was done

so i had to go with another guy who would replace some of the flooring
he was a real son of a bitch but the floors came out nice
if i wasnt on such a time crunch i would have done the shit myself
no one else can quite meet my standards

you need to make sure you get someone who 110% knows wtf they are doing
wood floors can only be sanded so many times, and if you get some douchebag in there that takes off too much wood, and then fucks it up, you might not have enough left before the tongue and groove to get it fixed

just a friendly heads up...

the stain looks great man
looks like all your hard work is definitely paying off
the guy who did my floors used a sheep skin applicator to get it a little more but it can also leave you with high spots so watch out for that
 
talk to as many people as you can
i talked to every contractor i know and most came back with the same name
the guy came and told me he would take my money, it wouldnt look good when it was done

so i had to go with another guy who would replace some of the flooring
he was a real son of a bitch but the floors came out nice
if i wasnt on such a time crunch i would have done the shit myself
no one else can quite meet my standards

you need to make sure you get someone who 110% knows wtf they are doing
wood floors can only be sanded so many times, and if you get some douchebag in there that takes off too much wood, and then fucks it up, you might not have enough left before the tongue and groove to get it fixed

just a friendly heads up...

the stain looks great man
looks like all your hard work is definitely paying off
the guy who did my floors used a sheep skin applicator to get it a little more but it can also leave you with high spots so watch out for that
Thanks. We've gotten a few bids. The guy I think we're going to go with has been doing it for 25 years. He seems "to me" to know what he's talking about and giving is a good rate as work is slow for him right now. He mentioned he's only sanding enough to take off the existing varnish. The people before us had carpet on this floor, so its in rough shape.
 
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