Kitchen floor now in (w/pics)

[David F. Eisan]

Evening All,

Here is how the kitchen stands right now. I have all the hardwood flooring down and I am waiting for the plumber and electrician to do their work so I can hang some cabinets. I and my wonderful helper spent the vast majority of the weekend installing the flooring. The flooring is prefinished (golden oak'ish in colour) 3.25" wide, 3/4" thick red oak. The flooring in the hallway outside the kitchen runs in one direction and in the dining room the other way (at right angle to). So, since I couldn't decide which way to be parallel to I decided to run the flooring at 45 degrees across the room. This added much more work, but I love how it came out.

To start, I laid out some chalk lines starting just inside the two doorways and wanted to floor away from that direction. I jointed two edges of a 2x4 and screwed it to my starting chalk line. Once I had reached the corner, I removed the 2x4 and secured the tongue of the first strip with pre-drilled and countersunk drywall trim screws. I then glued a 1/2"x1/4" hard maple (had on hand) strip into the groove to be a tongue so I could start flooring in the other direction. The first doorway was easy, just slap a board in the tennoning jig on the Unisaw with a 1/4" dado cutter (my lovely assistant did most of this) and lay it down. Once at the other doorway, the board had to be a *perfect* fit, no room for error, 5 cuts nibbling up to my final length and angle for each board were common. I must say I have fallen in love with my Hitachi C10FSH 10" SCMS w/laser onto which I was using a CMT 80 tooth -5º radial arm saw blade. Each cut had to be a perfect finish cut, no room for tearout. Cutting through the finished oak flooring at 45º with *zero* splintering was a dream come true. I had the laser set to indicate waste, so when nibbling off 0.25º of a degree the laser would show what was being removed, made the job sooo much easier.

Starting out in the corner,

the groove and adding a tongue to start flooring in the opposite direction,

the end of the first day,

lovely assistant adding a groove to the end of a 44.5º cut for one doorway piece,

finished floor,

for the low quality of the photo's, but I could not have hoped for the floor to have turned out any better, I am very pleased, it turned out perfectly.

Thanks,

David.

Every neighbourhood has one, in mine, I'm him.

Remove the "splinter" from my email address to email me.

[Wilson]

[David F. Eisan]

Hello there,

It is prefinished, so I won't be adding any additional finish on top of the factory finish.

Thanks,

David.

[Alan Bierbaum]

snip

You are a brave man. I would not let a plumber OR electrician near a brand new floor; much less the two of them . t does look good though.

Alan Bierbaum

web site:

[patriarch]

"David F. Eisan" wrote in news:C8Qxc.1253$ [e-mail]:

Nice work there, David, and lovely assistant. I hadn't considered the diagonal layout before, but it works well for your application, and may work quite well for the project my lovely partner has been contemplating for the last 4 or 5 years.

Regarding the prefinished flooring product you used:

• This was a two day job. How large is the room? Would a 'squared up' install still have been two days?

• Are you happy with the product you chose? Brand?

• Having just completed this room, would you use this same product again?

• Would you recommend this product to someone who is an intermediate level woodworker, with all the tools shown in your pictorial, but who has not previously installed a nail-down wood floor?

• Did you consider a floating installation?

• Would you care to offer a cost per square foot estimate for materials?

Any one else besides David with an experienced opinion to share?

Thanks in advance!

Patriarch, who thinks it's a shame that the lovely coordinated wall color is going away...;-)