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!