Finally it's flooring time.
Joan and Rene arrive in a couple of weeks so the pressure is now on.
Normally this is a one weekend job .. except I always like to make things incredibly difficult for myself.
One way of putting flooring down is to put down an overlay and let the weight of the floor hold it in place - called a floating floor. This has the benefit of being easy and relatively quick.
A more comprehensive way to do this is to glue down the floor. Much more messy and takes about 3x as long. However as everything is attached, it's also much more solid. It feels better underfoot as there is no floating involved.
The first step was to let all the boards acclimatise in the room. This is because wood being a natural product expands and contracts. Better to have this all done before installing the floor so you don't end up with any unpleasant surprises. And I've already had enough of those. The benefit of taking so £$%^!!! long to get everything else done is that the flooring has had plenty of acclimatising time in our house.
One of the tricky spots was the fireplace. I wanted a single board to wrap around the hearth to keep things neat and tidy and also look relatively square. Being an older house, there wasn't going to be much that was square in the room. But the secret is keeping things square where it is noticeable. The fireplace is a key feature in the room so this one was important. The other key point when planning flooring is to make sure you don't end up with silly cuts .. like a sliver of boards at the end. So lots of measuring and planning before even the first board went down.
And there goes the first cut. I did this one by hand so that I could make sure there wasn't any oops moments. This could now slot under the hearth which we got installed slightly raised to allow everything to tuck underneath an give a nice finished look.
And the first 3 rows test fitted in place. Notice the stops made out of off-cuts to hold the row in place.
Next came the adhesive. Special flooring adhesive - in non-Englush.
This was spread using a 5mm v-notched trowel. Nothing on the instructions told me this. I had to call up the place and ask. But £10 and a day later via Amazon - I was ready to go.
Lot's of good instruction videos on YouTube on how to put down flooring adhesive. My favourite was MrDoItYourself - his Englush isn't great, but he actually takes the time to explain the steps involved and good practice. As opposed to most of YouTube done in the usual Bob Villa, "take the wood and the hammer and magically everything fits together in 5 seconds" style. Another good video here although this fits more into the Bob Villa camp.
I managed to get about 6 rows done - 3 at a time - and clamped it all together overnight to dry. I used stops on both sides to hold everything in place. People use painters tape but I think this is a more reliable method. Notice the numbers on the individual floor pieces to make sure everything went back in order and there wasn't any overlapping joints.
Special learning from all this. Using gloves protects the hands pretty well but you lose feel for the glue. This means in my case that I smudged it all over the flooring. The problem with this glue is that it gets everywhere. A splash on the knee pads means it's suddenly all over the floor. Pretty easy to clean before it dries using mineral spirits. Apparently next to impossible when it dries so make sure you get it all off. It is also terribly messy stuff - thick and gooey when it starts off and a solid rubber when it dries. I had this stuck to my hands for several days afterwards.
Rad pipes present another problem. Usually difficult but when matched with a angled corner, this become even tougher. The key here is to get the angles right first on the piece and then cutting out the hole an then then finally the wedge to put it back - see here for a video on this.
Next was the final bits which included undercutting the doorway. This of course required me to get a new tool again. The FatMax multi-tool - perfect for the task.
What this involved was getting some off-cuts for both the plywood underlay and the finished flooring and using this to mark the bits that needed to be cut from the doorway. The undercut hides the ends of the boards and allows for the necessary expansion gaps. It gives a nice finished look to the entire install.
Don't mind the chipped paint. This needed a re-coat anyway.
And the last row. As I mentioned earlier, through planning in advance I didn't need to cut too much off the final row when installing.
My circular saw with a cutting guide was perfect for this task. A table saw would have been more perfect, but unfortunately I don't have one of these (yet). If any spouses are considering birthday/Xmas presents however ???
Blocks were put in to hold everything in place while it dried. I even used a screwdriver for this task. Hey whatever works right?
I'd show the finished floor but it's covered with all the extra flooring while I do the other rooms.
Anyway, a couple of weekends to do the whole thing and even a weeknight. Which by the way was about 2 days before Joan and Rene arrived. I got it all done in time .. but just. Whew!
