Do-It-Yourself Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood floors are a beautiful upgrade to any home and, with the range of products available, they are an easy weekend job for the Do-It-Yourself’er. Choosing the right flooring option is the first step, so it is important to know which solution is best for the job. For the home handyman (and handywoman), the three flooring options available are nailed, glued, and floating.

Nailed Planks

The most traditional and most difficult method of installing hardwood flooring is to nail (or staple) the thin strips of wood to a wooden sub-floor. If you are feeling burly and want to tackle this method, you will need a few special tools: a flooring nailer for blind nailing each plank to the sub-floor, a center-punch for sinking finishing nails, and small pry bar will come in handy. I cannot recommend this method to any home installer because of the time and experience generally necessary to pull it off. Also, this kind of installation cannot be done over a bare cement foundation. For an awful lot of kitchen and lower story floors, this would require installing a wood sub-floor first. That means a bit of extra work.

Glued Engineered Flooring

This is the kind of flooring you can pick up at your local home improvement store. The planks come in packages meant to cover around 22 square feet and are available in maple, cherry, and oak veneers. I recommend this over any other method for permanence and ease of installation. The flooring is generally sold as a “system” with matching moldings and thresholds, making it much simpler for the weekend warrior. The installation process starts with surface preparation. The old flooring has to be removed and, in the case of tile, the old mastic has to be chipped off. If you are replacing a tile floor, rent an impact hammer and wide chisel at the same time you buy the new flooring; it will make short work of a generally gritty job. A layer of glue is laid down and then the boards, fitting tongue to groove as you progress. I recommend that you start from the center of the room and progress out to the walls; this way it will be easy work to trim the last boards to the proper width with a table saw. It is important to leave a gap between the boards and any walls or immovable objects to allow the boards room to expand and contract, an 1/8-inch should do it.

Floating Engineered Flooring

Floating hardwood floors are relatively new and an easy way around the surface prep necessary for glued-down planks. The hardwood literally “floats” above the previous flooring. Each plank is engineered to snap into the planks around it. When properly installed, the whole floor acts like one giant piece of wood. The only prep work required is laying down a pad to absorb impacts and dampen vibrations. The pad gives the floor a solid feeling and it can be hard to tell it from its glued and nailed cousins. I recommend this method if you have a lot of tile that needs to be replaced with hardwood. Carpet and pads should be removed or the results will not be particularly stable. The gap rule from glued flooring still applies.

So there you have three great ways to spruce up the homestead and add a bit of value at the same time. It really is a fun project for a long weekend. Just remember to pick the right type to match your home and your skills (and make sure you consider the new tools you’ll need too).