Dining Room Remodel- Hardwood floor installation

What a great start to 2016!  With a long weekend on hand, the Laird, his father and I worked hard to install the Red Oak hardwood flooring in the dining room.

We purchased our load of lumber from www.flooring.org.  I was quite pleased with the selection of widths, as they offered every inch width from 1" to 12" wide planks.  Another feature that influenced us to purchase from flooring.org was not only that they offered wider planks (Lumber liquidators only offered 5" wide planks in Red Oak), but the length were available in longer sections as well.  We ordered the random lengths of 2' to 10' planks.  The price comparison between Lumber Liquidators and Flooring.org unfinished red oak also proved that flooring.org was a better option, even with the shipping costs.

Though it was easier to get our kitchen flooring from the local Lumber Liquidators, the process was only slightly more involved ordering online from flooring.org and having it delivered.  The prices were better as well, and we were able to get exactly what we wanted, the long length, wide planks.  We do have to go through the extra work of staining and finishing our flooring, which we did not have to do with the pre-finished Lumber Liquidators flooring.  But this was necessary since we needed to match the flooring in the dining room to the stairs that enter there.

The long lengths and wide planks also made the installation go much more quickly.  Here are a few photos to show the progress of our dining room remodel.

 BEFORE:
Originally the dining room was likely used as a family room, as it had this huge Buck Stove taking up more space than was necessary or efficient.  Though the Laird would probably have preferred to live with things "as is", I decided it was imperative that the wood stove corner get removed.  The "rock climbing" stones above the dark hearth were not adding anything appealing to this room.

 Another feature in question was this pine paneling surrounding only half the room.  The Laird likes the pine paneling because it is the perfect look for his "Jungle Room"/ Library.  I am willing to leave the pine paneling in the corner up to the edge of the window.

1)  Back in September, we were able to find an interested buyer for the Buck Stove.  Though we didn't get as much money as it was worth, I felt like we got paid to have someone move it out of our house and take it away!  It was a win-win situation for us and the buyer.

2) The next step was to remove the wood stove hearth.  One weekend proved enough to demo that corner and make things feel like we were making progress.




After demo- we clearly needed to empty the room of all the junk that had been getting stored in this unused part of our house (See photo below).  Cleaning up felt so good.

3)  Then the Laird ripped out the carpet in order to make room for the 1100lbs. of Red Oak flooring getting delivered.  It's important to allow the wood to acclimate to the room for a number of days before installation.





Here is the Laird picking out the perfect 1st piece of wood to lay down along the wall.

5)  And finally the INSTALLATION!  The most difficult part was laying the first row of wood because our walls are not straight.  But after the Laird worked out the challenges with the first row, the rest was mostly smooth sailing.  After putting hardwoods in the kitchen, and now in the dining room we are firm believers that it works best/ most efficiently with 3 people.  I, the Lady work on the lay out of each row of board.  This is an important task, as it involves making sure to avoid H joints or cascading joints.  I lay out a couple rows, and the Laird cuts wood down to size and then he and his father then nail the pieces down.  This is of course all after a sheet of moisture proof underlayment is lay down.


Before any wood could be laid, the Laird had to level the right side of the room with concrete leveling compound (notice grey area).

 Once the Laird's father showed up, the work went more quickly and efficiently.

Notice the changes outside.  We worked on this for 3 days.

Once Lord Jeremy arrived (on the third day), we were cruising!  We were able to get just past the stairs to the trap door entering the basement.

Though we are only about 3/4 of the way done with the flooring installation, it feels so wonderful to have mostly finished flooring in our dining room.  Definitely feels so much cleaner than what was there. We are getting there, and the end of interior projects feels so near.  Next steps are to finished the last quarter of floor installation, then rent a large floor sander and then start staining.  After staining we will work to finish the floors were a few coats of polyurethane.