20 Hours Later

Saturday morning found us up and in the house bright and early. Bob was up by 630, preparing tools and double checking measurements in the crawlspace under the house. We didn't want to take any chances on nailing the PEX tubing supplying the heat to the house! I joined him around 7 and we began the lengthy process. I didn't go out with the camera so I missed the beginning and can only show you what was accomplished at the end of 12 hours when we called it quits for the day. As stated earlier, we started in the far corner near the woodstove until we reached the entry out into the dining room. There we had to shoot a chalk line and line up a row of wood along the line across to the wall in the kitchen. Bob had to put nails in the floor to secure them briefly while he nailed them with the flooring nailer. Then we added a "spline" on the groove side creating another tongue so we could reverse directions on the wood, Then we covered the floor from this point to the outside wall. Once within a few rows of the wall, Bob had to face nail except directly in front of the door. In the three pictures below, you can see it although our work is covered with furniture and more boxes of wood.

We also cleaned the floor (there is never ending drywall dust aka "death dust" on EVERYTHING) and unpacked more wood, covering every available floor space with more flooring so it could be drying for Sunday's work. (There is the lone snare drum setting there looking so lonely. The Scribbler, our resident drummer, practices in the house.)


Our first goal on Sunday was to complete the flooring in the living room past the front of the tile that is under the woodstove. We wanted to start at that end so we would have a nice straight edge there against the tile. We were able to work three to four rows at a time making very visible progress immediately. When you are doing such long rows if you only do one at a time, when you get to the end it looks as if you have accomplished nothing! It's really neat when we get into a rhythm and it moves really fast. I would lay out boards, Bob would begin nailing and then I would come behind him to lay another. He could come back to add another, then move on to others I had placed and so forth. Once we reached the end of the tile we had nearly finished the living room space in front completely. Then we began working on the rows on the all ready finished edge moving all the way down the room to the kitchen so we could then start doing rows from there. In order to quit we had to finish the kitchen area including the island area so cabinets could begin to be installed on Monday. It took us an additional 8 hours on Sunday to reach this goal. Then we cleaned up, clearing space for the installers, and laying out more boards to dry. We are going to take a break until Wednesday or Thursday to allow sufficient drying time but only a break from wood flooring. Bob will be working on our shower pan as well as tiling this week. Our framer is coming to help with that, the pocket door and our doors that are just a bit too wide for their frames. We are hoping to finish up flooring this NEXT weekend. Enjoy the pictures and let me know if you like the teak floors?



Love, Ellie~