Don’t ask me why we take on the projects in our house ourselves that we do. But we did it again; this time installing hardwood flooring in our bedroom. We are renovating our master bedroom so we knew that the old carpet had to come up especially since our dog had ripped a hole in it. My husband swears that I bribed her with treats to do this since I’ve wanted hardwood for awhile in our room. I can honestly say I don’t know what he’s talking about…
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I will say that I love that we have the original hardwood flooring in the rest of the house from 1955 but matching it was a little difficult. It was the width that was difficult to find. I told my husband that I wanted the natural unstained flooring I’ve seen lately and he said he wasn’t sure that was going to work since the rest of the floors were dark stained. I had other ideas so I just let that conversation just hang out there in the air and we have already talked about refinishing the original floors anyway so we knew that would give us a few options.
Now I will say that we don’t know the first thing about installing hardwood flooring but we watched a lot of videos on YouTube (and we stayed at a Holiday Inn last night) so I figured we were ready to take on the task.
PICKING OUT FLOORING
After looking at so many different types of flooring that it got to the point they all just ran together. We started feeling like Goldie Locks so we agreed that the best thing was to go with a unfinished, unstained oak floor. That way we could make it look however we wanted in the end.
We found what we were looking for at Lumber Liquidators. They said it would take about 7-10 days for it to be ready since they cut it as needed also they round the amount you need up (ex: If you need 263 sq ft you have to purchase 270 sq ft). So 10 bundles, 2 rolls of moisture barrier, and 1 roll of quiet underlayment later and we have purchased our flooring. While we waited we went ahead a prepped the floor for installation.
PREPPING THE FLOOR
We ripped up carpet, pulled up the underlayment, removed the tack strips and nails, and swept the room. We also had to go under the house and repair a piece of the plywood flooring by the door that was sagging slightly.
When everything was finished I looked around and thought “Did we just start something that we won’t be able to finish?” To late now.
LAYING OUT MOISTURE BARRIER & QUIET WALK
First things first when you lay down the moisture barrier, quiet walk, and the flooring it needs to run across the floor joists. If you run the flooring in the same direction as the joists you take the chance of it sagging over time.
Now when laying the moisture barrier it needs to come up the sides a little and you are to overlap the edge of each rolled out piece as you go. When you install the quiet walk each rolled out piece needs to be taped together (some rolls come with tape already attached). Both of these should run in the same direction with each other.
Once this was all installed we moved all the wood flooring into the room and let it acclimate (adjust to the humidity and temperature of the room) for at least 10 days. Otherwise you take the chance of it popping up and such.
This felt like the longest 10 days because I was ready to install some floor!! But I would learn very soon that this would be nothing compared to what was coming.
10 days later we were ready with all of our handy dandy tools we needed…
PLANNING OUT A LAYOUT
I started laying pieces out. Then I learned the seams can’t end close to each other and you want to lay it out so you don’t have to cut to many pieces when you got to the end of the row. Well that made me have to move all of these apart and start again…
INSTALLING THE FIRST ROW
Let’s try this again. This time we just went ahead and started nailing the pieces in place as we went. We installed the first row using a nail gun nailing it as close to the wall as you can so its not noticeable.
PULLING YOUR PIECES
As you go along you need to pull from different pallets since each pallet comes from different parts and the colors are different in each pallet and you don’t want the floor to look grouped together.
SECURING THE PIECES
Using a pneumatic floor nailer and a rubber mallet we started placing and nailing the pieces into place. When you nail into a piece you want the nail to go in between the lip and the top of the piece. It’s easy to do since the nailer has a ledge that will put you flush up against the edge of the piece.
It starts to go fairly quick once you get in a rhythm and someone is helping you. You also want to make sure your pieces are flush together on all sides before you nail them into place.
Small reminder: don’t do what I did and not pay attention to how many nails are left in your gun…
Yep..
Had to pull a row a couple times. You would think I would have learned the first time but. No. Pulling those nails isn’t easy since you don’t want to take the chance of damaging the wood.
When I finally stood back and looked at it I became really impressed at what we were doing. We were laying a floor!
SECURING THE LAST ROW
When we got to the end the last row was a little hard to fit in. We had to use a floor installation kit to pull the pieces in so you can fit them in snugly and nail them in place.
And with that ladies and gentlemen we have installed a hardwood floor. Next step is to sand, seal and apply the finish coat.
PICKING THE SEALANT & FINISH
When it came to picking which sealant and finishing coat to use I did my homework on this part. I read so many stories about stuff scratching easily, drying cloudy, changing the color of the wood even though its not supposed to. Now I know I looked at maybe 20 different brands and read 100’s of reviews. I also watched so many youtube videos on how to apply, what it looked like applied, what tools to use to apply it with….and on and on and on. I swear my eyes crossed with all the information I had gathered.
Then I came across Bona Traffic and Naturalseal. Yes they are on the higher end of the price range but very much worth it. With our size floor they recommended two of the Traffic w/mix in additive and one of the natural seal.
TOOLS NEEDED
Now as far as the other things we needed for the application they recommended their rollers and cut in pads etc…..but that is where I was not going to pay for it. The accessories was also on the higher end of the price range. So instead I bought a painting cut in pad and a regular paint roller for the sealant and with the finish we used the cut in pad again and this time we taped the roller (not the roller pad) so it wouldn’t roll but stay still as we pulled it across the floor during application.
DRYING TIME
Ok so when it comes to drying time it breaks down like this: Traffic = 2-3 hours between each coats (If you are going to apply a different product after then it needs to dry overnight). With the Naturalseal = 2-3 hours as well but we only did one coat of it.
FINISHED LOOKS & STAINS
We picked the Naturalseal because we didn’t want to change the look of the wood. They offer different shades or should I say finishes. The best thing I did when picking out which one we would like was watching YouTube videos of other peoples applications showing and outcomes with them. I felt that they showed the true result for me. Better than the product website.
Once we applied all the coats necessary we had to wait a total of a week before we could place furniture on it (to prevent dents). Everything took a total of maybe almost close to 2 weeks.
I know it felt like it was never going to be done but when we placed everything in the end after completing our Master Bedroom Renovation it looked gorgeous. Exactly how we wanted it to look. I will say we have two cats and one dog and with them and us walking on it a no living it has held up beautifully. NO SCRATCHES AND NO DULLING.
Will we do it again…let’s just say I’m glad the rest of the floors just need to be sanded and sealed. Because our bodies did not like us for a couple weeks after this.
If video is more your thing catch it all below.
