After waiting three weeks for the floors to arrive by train (ostensibly from Virginia Mill, but the boxes distinctly said: Made in China (!), we were able to install them last Saturday. Papa came down to offer his invaluable experience, and as a result it only took 5 hours!
We purchased our flooring from Lumber Liquidators. It's hand-scraped, matte finish Coventry Oak, 4.75" wide boards, .75" thick, varying lengths. As you can seen in the above stacks, the lengths really varied. In some boxes there were maybe 8 different lengths, some with only a 2-3" difference. We opted to match the wood floors in the rest of the house by material and color only. We really wanted the handscraped matte look in the kitchen because it won't show wear and tear as readily, and the 4.75" wide boards meant that there were fewer boards to install.
We rented the nailer from Interstate Rentals and it worked pretty smoothly.
We installed Vapor Barrier between the subfloor and the wood floor to help prevent squeaks - it works!
The most time-consuming part was the angled transition between the living room and the kitchen. But with three heads (including a math teacher and an engineer), we got it figured out and it looks good.
We still need to get the transition piece, so for now it's a toe-stubbing hazard.
We were able to move the stove, dishwasher and fridge into the room last night. The stove is hooked up, so we could feasibly boil water now!
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| The fridge is hanging out in the middle of the room for now until we can change the door swing. |
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