DIY Hardwood Flooring

So, in my last post I put a teaser of what was to come in our household. I was so sick of carpet I told my husband that I wanted hardwood. It took us a while to find what we wanted because of the finish on hardwood floors. Almost all prefinished hardwood is finished with Aluminum Oxide, and I didn't want that. So we contacted a flooring place and the nice lady was able to point us in the right direction. I tend to be very chemically sensitive, and was concerned with what I had been reading about aluminum oxide. Just so you know, it is very hard to find prefinished hardwood with a polyurethane only finish. We ended up with one from Bruce. And we LOVE it!! We've had it now for a few months and there are a couple of scratches, but that's not surprising with three kids, a dog, and two cats, as well as a couple of occasional clumsy adults :)

Let me tell you, it was a process. First you have to prep your floors. So we needed to rip out the carpet, and padding. It was pretty gross. We have lived in this house for eight years and we have been known to spill a glass or two of whatever, but what was really disgusting, was the saturated nastiness living in the padding under areas where we have had furniture sitting for the past eight years, so we know it was from the previous owners. Yuck. Who knows what that was...

Next we needed to take out all of the staples from the subfloor. That wasn't fun. I was better at it than my husband (now that I think about it, his inability to remove them quickly was probably intentional), so that was my job, which in case you're wondering, the best tool for the job was the corner of a pry bar, hubby had been using pliers. We also needed to scrape off the padding that was seemingly glued to the subfloor, hubby had that nasty job. When all of that was done, we brought in the shop vac and cleaned everything up.

Next we needed to see how level the floor was. We were only allowed a small variance in the floor per the manufacturers instructions. Shockingly, and luckily, we were pretty spot on for the whole floor.

When we had carpet, there were certain areas of the floor that felt a little soggy under foot. That is really the best way I can describe it. It almost felt like the subfloor may have had some water damage and was rotting, so we were curious as to what we might find when we removed the carpet. We had checked the flooring from underneath (basement ceiling), and didn't see anything amiss. When we looked closer after removal of the carpet we found out what was really going on. Apparently over time, the glue used to hold plywood together starts to un-stick itself. So the sort of springy feeling was subfloor separating. Yay! Easy fix. We purchased another sheet, stuck it in and called it a day.

Before we started laying the floor, we decided to paint and de-squeak our house. My husband said he thinks our house was built on a giant squeak toy because of the insane level of squeakiness. So, he went a little crazy with the screwing down of the subfloor, but it was needed. Fast forward a few months, and we are still squeak free.

When we received our flooring they gave us something called asphalt paper (I think that's what it was called), to lay on top of the subfloor, and under the hardwood. we unrolled that stuff, and I took one whiff, and said "NO WAY!!" It smelled just like asphalt (duh). I'd rather not have my home smelling like a construction site, and besides, who knows what kind of issues you'd have constantly breathing that stuff in..no thanks. We decided to lay down rosin paper instead.

Finally it was time to lay down the wood...

 

What do you think? Better, right?