Flooring Update…Almost there..

…almost there…almost there…

..picking the stain..1 was 2 dark..the other was darker..but 1 was juuuust right.

OK..so the bedroom is stained…finally! it has been a long road and I want to thank everyone involved: A*, Me, my patience and beer. OK, now that is out of the way…I did not want to leave it until the last minute as I always forget. SO, since the last update we picked a new stain, nailed the boards into the joists and stained the floor..man it seems like we did nothing when I simplify things like that..I started to nail in the pieces and made it to the second row when I split a piece of wood..after that I used a drill to pre-drill my holes at the butt ends..no problems after that. To make sure I had the lines straight I had run thread from nail/stud location to nail/stud location and it was really helpful, I did not miss a stud once when nailing the boards down..I was really impressed! When nailing down the floors I worked from the outside-in and after the second row of nails there was a big difference in the amount of movement and noise on the boards when walking on it..by the time all 6 joists were nailed into there was no noise and the floor seemed really stable. Once the nails were all in I countersunk the nails to elimnate the potential for ripping socks/feet on the floor. As I posted before we are going for a rustic look on the floor so the nails will remain exposed..and it looks really nice in my opinion!..after the stain went on A* noted that all of the little imperfections and nail holes are not even noticable with all that is going on with the actual boards..I am really impressed with our work..here it is:

all of the pieces cut..with a tacked up board to show what the baseboard will look like

..not perfect

..but thats OK..we are not going for perfection!

another shot of the room before we nail it down

..about to start nailing…wow time flies on here.

..breakfast..the stovetop needs conditioning..and usually you don’t open the top to cook.

nailing it down..line and nails with my hammer. please hammer, don’t hurt em ( my finger that is )

nailing nearing completion

..and the rustic nails are almost straight!…used 4inch wood nails..enough to get through the sub floor and insulation

nice.

and..DONE!

A* cleans up before staining

on your mark. get set. STAIN!

..and stain.

A* takes the lead.

gets some tips from her training coach..

almost there…

the final stretch!

and done..now for the sealing and protection!

..picking the stain..1 was 2 dark..the other was darker..but 1 was juuuust right.

the pieces being cut to the width of the floor..finally

 ..and the final product:

and done..now for the sealing and protection!

..and the good news is that we only used 1/4 of the wood we purchased the do this room..so we should be able to do the other bedroom and most of the living room..the bad news is that the wood has to go through the labor intensive milling process…here we go again..but NOT right away! ;)