One room done...

I've been out of town a couple of days this week, and have a finance test tomorrow evening to study for but I still found the time to get a lot of work done this weekend. The dining room is complete, the hallway almost done, and the family room is getting there.

This week I spent a lot of time dry fitting wood. When there was more than enough for a whole bucket of glue to cover Danielle and I carefully numbered each row and piece and pulled all of it back up. That way we knew that everything was cut to fit. That worked out MUCH better than trying to measure and cut as you go. We did a couple hundred square feet in about 2-1/2 or 3 hours, some of which was the last row in the hallway going forward (see: really hard to do because you pretty much have to lay a whole row of this stuff at a time because of the interlocking system that holds it together). There really weren't any problems this time around.

I was also able to get the baseboards back on and all the trim done in the dining room. There really isn't a whole lot to getting the baseboards to look good. Sand them with coarse sandpaper and then medium, and it'll hold paint pretty well. There's no need to sand through all of the old layers of paint unless you're trying to remove dings. Then fill the old nail holes with painter's putty, take care of any dings and then paint. It's pretty straightforward, and loads easier to do while they're not attached to the wall. Don't forget to remove all old caulk from the baseboards as well as the wall before nailing them back on. If all your cuts were accurate (and your baseboard is thick) you won't need shoe molding.

The only part that isn't more or less obvious is the caulking. I recommend caulking along the top and any left or right corners on the baseboards, but not the bottom. The best way I found to do it is to make a small cut at the tip of the caulk tube at about a 20-3o degree angle, about 1/16 inch in size. Load it up in the caulk gun and start at a corner and work your way backwards. At the end of each piece of baseboard run along the thin bead of caulk with a finger to feather it in and the results will come out just like the pros.

Anyway here are some pictures from the dining room now that it's all put back together. My apologies for the picture quality - I took them on my mobile because the memory card on the camera was full.





I'm hoping that during this week I'll be able to find the time to cut all remaining flooring so that next weekend we'll be ready to glue down the last of it.

Saturday / Sunday - Still working...

Tons of lessons learned so far. To keep it short (because I'm tired), Sunday was a great day. Really productive. I did a lot of test-fitting and didn't glue anything at all. But I'll be ready when it's time to open the second can of glue.

Saturday... not so much. We got the wood installed in a straight line running through the hallway but made a couple of mistakes but nothing we couldn't recover from. Some of it was unavoidable. The locking system Kahrs uses (called woodloc) is wonderful on a small to medium sized room. It lets you install wood the entire width of the room one plank at a time because it snaps together on the front, back and both sides. However, if you're trying to install along a hall without getting in the glue that's on the floor it doesn't work so well because you have to pull up some of the last plank you put down in order to snap in the two sides of the next one. And then you wind up with glue everywhere. Not fun.

So lessons learned... if you're gluing down the wood make sure you have a big bucket-worth of wood ready to go. If you keep having to stop, measure and cut more you'll get in trouble because the glue will start to harden in the bucket. Not good.

It's next to impossible to work backwards with woodloc if the glue holding down the piece in front of the one you want to install is dry. This board will want to come up just a bit for the interlocking parts to engage, but it can't do that if the glue is dry now... On a related note, make sure you build all the way to both walls because with this system you can only stop and then work forward without having to do a lot of trimming to the interlocking pieces.

Another problem with woodloc is that if you have any sideways obstructions (example - casing from a door that enters the room on the side) you WILL have to remove the casing to install the wood. Unlike traditional tongue and groove that you can just slide in, this rotates downward as it snaps together. In other words, even if you trimmed the casing it'll still need more room to rotate in.

So I guess my thoughts on woodloc are the good:
Installs TIGHT. Seamless, and looks really great. Perfect for a small to medium sized room without obstructions. I think it's saved me some time, and the results look great so far.

The bad:
Instructions fail to mention that you'd better build an *entire* row at a time before the glue dries or else there will be difficulties. You also can't slide in pieces of wood under casings and door frames. I'll have to repaint a couple of door frames after this is all done because I had to cut out a couple of blocks along the bottom to get the wood to rotate into place.

So that's why today I just laid out wood in one room and cut it all to fit. I'll have to remove it to glue everything down but the pieces are numbered and organized, and I can work the entire width of the room at a time (rather than going down a hallway) so this will be much easier. No running back and forth to the saw while the glue dries.

Anyway, pictures to come when something worth taking a picture of happens!

Friday update

I'm getting closer to being able to install wood. Really I am. There is one small high spot to grind down this morning, and a little more self-leveler to do and once it's dry I can start building. FINALLY!!!

Ok fine. I have to take care of three door frames and the other side of the mantle first, but still. Almost there! I have no idea what kind of wood the mantle is made of but it's the hardest stuff I've ever had to cut through. I'm seriously tempted to use the cutoff wheel on the dremel to try and slice through this (it works on steel, so why not?). I thought it would be pine since it's always been painted anyway and I thought most mantles were made from pieces of molding for the most part but this one is something real.

So today's shopping list is short today. A couple of cans of expandable foam to run along the wall with because energy efficiency is a good thing, and one 10-inch saw blade for the miter saw.

Many thanks go out to the person who lives across the street for answering my endless questions about how to do this! The internet is full of advice, some of it is even good. But you can't beat asking someone who has already done the job.

Pictures to come this evening when I'm done!

A quick distraction (leaks and building codes)

I'd planned on writing a quick how-to about how to remove baseboard a couple of days ago, but before getting on the computer to write it Danielle and I went ahead and removed the carpet in the last room we're working on. We got a little surprise - moisture along one wall. That's not good.

A quick look outside revealed that the concrete patio and the foundation were originally sort of... attached. Some mortar was used to make a sort of filler between the bottom row of brick on the house and the patio concrete, but there was a hairline crack running along the bottom. I don't know what they were thinking when the built it that way because of course a thin strip of mortar will crack, especially when exposed to rain, cold, and heat over the years.

There are two steps to resolve the problem and make sure it doesn't come back. The first is to eliminate the crack with some masonry sealant. The second part is to cut back on the amount of water in the area when it rains so I installed rain gutters along the roofline. It rained hard again the next day with zero leaks!

But I noticed a second problem, this time in the dining room. Rain was seeping in from somewhere. This leak was a lot harder to find and was coming from a chip in the mortar below a window in a bedroom one floor above. I fixed this one with more masonry sealant. Now we don't have to worry about any water penetration ruining the wood floor! I think both were quite recent - the framing looks perfect and nothing is damaged.

Our other little discovery came this evening when I had earplugs and safety glasses on, chisel and hammer in hand and was getting ready to remove the tiles that make up the hearth extension in front of the fireplace. Our plans were to run the wood flooring all the way to the wall, but at the last second I decided to go make sure if it's required. I found out San Antonio adopted the 2006 International Residential Code not long ago. The code states that for fireplaces 6 square feet or larger (ours is 6.25) a hearth extension of 20 inches is required. So the tile stays for now, until we can find something better to build it out of that both Danielle and I can agree upon. Sometimes that little voice in the back of your mind telling you to check something one last time can really get you out of a lot of trouble!

I've made a bit more progress on the wood flooring prep work. The dining room and entry way lack me trimming some tile that extends past the front door threshold. I plan on doing that with a diamond tipped cutting blade for my angle grinder. Low spots have been identified in both that room and the hallway, along with one small high spot. I still need to scrape old drywall texture off the floor in the living room and check for level tomorrow. We'll be able to do that pretty easily, and I hope to be able to spread some of the leveling compound then as well.

So despite a few setbacks things are still coming along pretty well. More updates coming soon!

Tuesday Update - Hardwood Install

I used a vacation day from work because the wood was supposed to arrive today. That gave me plenty of time at home to focus on the tile mortar around the entry way and front closet. It took me a good 6 hours or so to do maybe 15 square feet. This stuff was really on there! By the end of the day the chisel that came with the air hammer was worn down nearly all the way so it looks like I'll be stopping by Harbor Freight on the way home from work tomorrow. Somehow they're able to sell a set of air chisels for $3 according to their website. As long as I can get the thing to last for about another 8 square feet of tile in front of the fireplace they're fine by me.

I also was able to scrape a lot of drywall texture and carpet padding glue off the floor today. The hallway is clear except for underneath the baseboards (still to come off). Most of the dining room is done too. That means I was able to start testing for moisture this evening. I've got my fingers crossed that it comes out well!

It turns out it was a really good idea to pull the baseboards. They were almost an almond color when they were put in (before carpet was installed probably) and someone repainted them white at some point. They didn't get the white paint all the way down though and the baseboards were two colors. With them off the wall I'll be able to clean them up, repaint and install them on top of the wood so I won't need a shoe molding.

My plans tomorrow are to pull the baseboards in the hall and carpet / tack strip in the living room. The wood did come in today - all 1,210 lbs of it. The delivery guy and I moved it piece by piece (22 boxes at 24kg each) into the garage, and then I brought it inside the house later. I'm going to sleep pretty well tonight...

I think it's going to rain tonight. We discovered that the flashing around the chimney wasn't installed right after sunday morning's downpour. The roofing company came back out and made some repairs, and I'm looking forward to getting the chance to test how well they came out before the new flooring gets installed.

So a few things that I learned:
Broken pieces of ceramic tile are SHARP. Like glass sharp. It's easiest by far in my opinion to try and remove the tile whole. Hitting the top of a tile to try and break it up doesn't work. It just sends pointy tile shards everywhere while the big pieces don't move. Maybe this works better where they weren't put down that well to begin with. No matter how you do it, be sure to have safety glasses on.

On removing tile cement:
This is the worst job you can do aside from digging in the summertime Texas sun. That's the one good part about this - you're indoors. But I came across a couple of things that make the job slightly less horrible. First off, use an air hammer. Buy one, rent one, find one. Get one somehow. You will get nowhere fast if you try using a hammer and chisel if the tiles were put down well. You NEED an air hammer. And some safety glasses and earplugs to go with, because bits of cement will go flying everywhere and it's also loud.

Another tip is to wet the tile cement before chipping away at it. A lot less dust will fly around and it's somewhat easier to remove the stuff that way. You don't need to drown the area, just get it damp.

On floor scrapers, my advice is to go ahead and just buy one. They're not expensive and you'll probably need it for more days than you thought anyway. But don't get the biggest one (14 in?). The corners of these things work better than the middle section.

To remove baseboards, take a blade and score the corner between the top of the board and the drywall. This is to keep the paint from pulling off the wall. Then carefully hammer in a putty knife and start sliding it around to feel for where the nails are. When you find one, slide in a small prying tool (NOT a screwdriver!) between the putty knife and baseboard. Now you can start rocking the knife back and forth some to slowly loosen the baseboard from the wall. Don't pull too hard or you'll risk splitting the wood. It'll get loose before long and you can move on to find the next nail. Keep going until the whole baseboard is loose and then you can carefully work it off the wall. Remember to always have a putty knife between the tool and wall to keep from damaging the sheetrock.

Now for a few pictures:

I had second thoughts about pulling up the carpet until I got to see what the back side looks like. For what it's worth, the carpet is 7 years old and I think people only lived in the house while it was down for 4 or 5 years. This stain is by the kitchen. I guess somebody's icemaker leaked a little.


Nearly all the tile is removed. It's kind of a neutral color but showed a lot of scratches and wear. This is before I knew how horrible it was going to be to remove the gray tile cement...


Danielle (Elle) helping remove tack strip. She's really good at it. Snowy is just watching the humans do all the work.


This is what it looks like this evening. Plastic taped down, floor almost clean. I still need to check for high / low spots.

Flooring Demo - Update

Late Saturday Elle and I started removing the old carpet in the dining room. We started there first because the tv and entertainment center are too big for the two of us to move and help wasn't coming until Sunday. Not a whole lot of surprises under there. The concrete looks good and there's nothing exciting down there. Underneath carpet on a house this new isn't exactly the place you go to find stuff.

So removing the carpet was easy and tack strips aren't exactly hard. All carpet will be donated to a (Tibetan?) refugee center, by the way. Tile is a little more trouble. I don't have any spares for the tile in the kitchen area, and these are exactly the same so I wanted to pull up as many as possible in one piece. We got about half - the tile was installed really well and didn't want to come up. The hard part with removing tile is getting the cement they're installed in off the concrete. MUCH more on that tomorrow.

I have a bunch of pictures to post tomorrow. As of right now:
The dining room: carpet and tack strip is out, baseboards are out
Entry way: tile removed, some tile mortar removed, baseboards out
Hallway: carpet and tack strip out

I'm taking the day off from work because the wood flooring is coming in... sometime. 1,210 lbs of it delivered to the curb. Guess who gets to take it inside? Anyway, much more coherent post coming tomorrow. With pictures. Check back soon!