| 1-3-04
Happy New Year.
Laying the oak floor is a daunting task, but it is the beginning of the
end. After nailing down any loose boards on the subfloor, it is
covered with building paper, and a line is snapped down the hallway,
dividing the house in half. The layout for the house will come off
this line, and I face-screw a line of boards up to it. |
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| The first board is installed down! We're on our way! |
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| The flooring is nailed with this gizmo called a
Porta-Nailer. You whack it with a mallet, and it cinches the board
up close to the next one and drives a cleat that resembles a skinny Christmas
tree in through the tongue. It takes about three whacks to drive one
nail (I used 2500 nails). Afterwards I walked around bent over like
this for three days, until a sympathetic coworker put his knee in my back
and pulled me upright again. |
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| Well, we have enough for a bowling alley down. As you
get close to a wall, you have to switch to face nailing again. |
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| 1-8-04
Almost there. Ran out of nails, and had to wait for more to come
mail-order from Nebraska. Finished up that evening. |
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| 1-9-04
Rented a pad sander from Home Depot, which is way easier to use than
the old belt sander. One long day sanded the floor using 36, 60, 80
and 120 grit sandpaper. Afterwards you sweep, vacuum, and dust thoroughly,
and wipe the floor down with mineral spirits to get the last of the dust
up. |
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| 1-11-04
We used Zar oil stain, which was well-behaved. If you drip a spot
in an area that you aren't able to wipe over in a while, it still blends
in perfectly, which was nice as it took about four hours to do the whole
house. |
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| 1-13-04
The first of two coats of polyurethane go on, sanding between coats. |
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| The second coat. The semi-gloss varnish dried much
less shiny than seen here, but you can see how flat the square buffer
sander leaves the surface, as opposed to the "waves" left by the
old drum and belt sander. |
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