Sawdust in Cyberspace

Six hundred and fifty square feet of disgusting carpet and nasty old tile has finally been converted into 3/4" solid oak hardwood floor...

...and despite all my best efforts to screw it up, it came out within 1/4" of straight even though I had to span over 30 feet in width, go around a fireplace wall and deal with 35 years of other idiots remodeling screw ups.

...damn...

I discovered that this floor has been through a lot.  From my efforts to cover it with hardwood, through smelly, dog pissy carpet, to tile, linoleum and, at some point in the past, BRIGHT red, shag carpet.  I can't even imagine how nasty that must have looked.

But now... as of 7pm this evening, the only thing on this floor is wood.  I also managed to get some of the cabinets installed and even stuck on a piece of trim around a window, just for good measure.  I'm pooped...

The next time I get a wild hair that tells me it's a good idea to nail down over 650 feet of flooring 2 1/2" at a time...?  Hit me...  hard... but not in the head... that doesn't faze me... obviously...

I'm going to crawl off to bed now and nurse my aches and pains.  I'm too old for this...  People my age usually have one tool in their remodel toolbox...

...their checkbook...

1. A scribing tool.  After trying to use a regular compass, I recommend getting one of these, or something very similar.  It's the best $100 you will ever spend... I really wish I had gotten one or made something like it.
2. Heavy card stock, no bigger than 14"
3. Scissors
4. Marking pencil
5. A scroll saw

For my wall, I knew that the fireplace wall was not only not straight but it was not square to the opposite wall (or anything else, for that matter) so my only choice was to start on the straight, square wall and work my way over to the fireplace.  This meant that my last row was essentially just nailed into the floor (I angled my nailer at different angles, hoping that this would help hold the flooring down tighter) and I had to knock the tongues off the next to last row with a chisel in order to get them squeezed in, but it seemed to work.  I don't see this last row getting a lot of traffic (it was about half a board wide, for the most part) so I am not too worried about it.  In any case, this was the best solution for me because of the shape of the room and the shape of the fireplace wall.  So here is what I did:

1. Place a piece of your card stock paper (I said no more than 14" long because I found that anything more than that became unwieldy) even with the edge of the last row of flooring you have nailed in.  Tape it down lighly to hold it in place.
2. Set the width of your scribing tool equal to the width of one of your pieces of flooring (2 for narrow width like mine, one should be enough for anything over 3 inches)
3. Now here is the tricky part... Place the scribing tool at the height of your flooring (mine is 3/4").  Put the scribe point on the wall and the pencil on the paper and pull down the wall, keeping the scribe point in constant contact with the wall.  The key here is to KEEP YOUR WRIST STRAIGHT!!!  If you turn your wrist to try to help the scribe follow the wall, it will screw up the pattern!!  This takes practice and patience, but saves wood.
4. Now cut the pattern out of the paper with the scissors. 
5. Take your pattern and line it up with the wall to see how you did.  Shave it where necessary to get a snug fit.
6. Once it's snug hold the paper pattern against the wall and mark the edge of your last piece of flooring on both ends.
7. Mark a line between these two points and cut it out.  You should now have a paper  pattern that looks like the wood piece you want and fits the hole.
8. Line up the flat part of the pattern with the edge of the flooring piece to be cut and then trace the pattern on the opposite side.
9. Using a scroll saw, cut along the pattern.  Because of the way my wall was put together (fieldstone and mortar) I found the best way to cut the pieces was to set the scroll saw bed at a 30 degree angle and UNDERCUT the flooring pieces.  This allows for the natural undulations of the wall but still provides support.  Also, cut the tongue off the end of the piece
10. Use a chisel to knock out the tongue on the adjacent piece.  Slide the piece into place, check it for fit and then nail it into place with AT LEAST 16 guage nails and a pneumatic nailer.
11. Fill the nail holes with touch up putty.

I would love to say that my cuts were perfect but I made plenty of mistakes.  All in all, though, I'm pretty pleased with the result.  I think the most important thing for me is that, even after all those goofy cuts and tweaking, I came out on the other side of the wall straight and true.  Whether it was skill or luck, I'm not sure...  All I know is that it looks right... and it's almost done!!!!

THAT was a pain in the ass...

Imagine putting together a puzzle, but creating it and cutting the pieces at the same time you are assembling them.  And they all have to fit perfectly up against a stone wall you didn't make.  That's about how it felt to get the hardwood flooring in around the fireplace hearth.

See... I'm stupid... or stubborn... or both.  I didn't want to cut a piece of trim to cover up the edges of the flooring.  I love the look of a hardwood floor going right up against a rock wall so that it looks like they sat the rock wall ON the flooring.  I think that was what was bugging me most about this floor.  I knew I wanted it that way and I REALLY KNEW it was going to be a pain... and... I was right.

But, it's done, for the most part, and tomorrow I turn the corner away from the dining room and begin the final transformation of the kitchen.  Once I get all the way past the wall, the rest of the flooring should go in relatively quickly.  Although I have a LOT of cleanup to do on the kitchen floor to get all the old thinset up.  But I have lots of tools, a dim wit and a tiny brain to get me through that.  Today was too much like work... I had to, like... THINK... & stuff...  That hurt...