Followup, engineered wood floor

Neat idea! Thanks for sharing.

Tim

How well does it repel objects like bunches of keys, or dropped screwdrivers etc ?.

The 18mm solid 'hardwood' flooring that I bought from Wickes in

Joe Stahlin would have known what to do, but haven't heard from him for years.

I have tried to avoid finding out on the real thing... ;-)

However I did take advantage of their free sample offer to get a couple of different boards to look at, and I did set about those with various sharp and blunt objects just to see just how hard they were. To be fair they were actually pretty tough. Those were lacquered finish though, which I decided to not go for since it gave the wood a slightly "fake" look.

Having seen the lacquered boards, I decided on the simple oiled oak, since that has a more natural look, and I figured would also be much simpler to touch up and repair if needs be. (based on the experience of doing the edging strip, now its been oiled, you can't see any transition to where it was cut and profiled etc). So I am hoping any other fixes should they be needed will also disappear nicely.

(I ordered some sets of felt pads for the chairs and table as well)

ISTR he has some stuff up on the FAQ though.

John, it may just be that you're an ace photographer and can make anything look good, but I liked the floorboards. Did you consider just sanding and sealing them?

Not really... partly because I had not even seen them when I chose the floor!

However I am also not a great fan of stripped pine in most circumstances, plus there were places where they were not that pretty where they had been lifted etc.

Hardwood, of course could be anything. Balsa wood is hardwood.

A decent oak (or reasonably thick oak veneer) will resist denting pretty well.

That's a *very* neat idea, I would never have thought of that. I guess it could also be used to trim the bottom of a door without removing it from the hinges. Might have to cut from both sides, I guess, and use a multitool at the hinge end.

It depends on how much you need to take off. There is a minimum offset due to the thickness of the base of the machine (probably about 4mm on mine, and then the blade itself has a wide kerf - another 3 to 4mm. So your realistic minimum cut height is say 8mm from the floor under the door. Which in many cases may be ok if there is already a carpets worth of clearance under the door.

(You can actually get door trimming saws that are designed for the job)

In this case I found it easier to take the door off the hinges, and trim about 5mm off it with a sawboard and circular saw, knock the arises off the cut edge with a block plane and re-hang it.

It's an excellent idea, but does make fitting the floor itself very much more difficult. The beauty with removing the skirting is that fitting the floor is so much easier. Luckily in this Victorian house the skirting is in several parts, so possible to remove the bottom part with no damage to the plaster or wall decoration.

I used a similar idea round the door frames. But just with a multi-tool and chisel.