Tonight I will mostly be laying

Biffa

Biffa

Biffa

Man of Honour
Joined
30 Oct 2002
Posts
15,856
Location
Surrey
With a lot of tongue.. and a fair smattering of groove ... ;)

Stage 1 of my oak floor domination regime!

The Hallway, using 2cm pre-oiled solid french oak boards (toungue and groove)

Before (well after I spent a weekend ripping up the chipboard):

hallway_b4_long.jpg
hallway_b4_kit.jpg
hallway_b4_frdoor.jpg


After (sorry about the shoes):
hallway_after_long.jpg
hallway_after_kit-1.jpg
hallway_after_frdoor.jpg


And one looking back the other way.
hallway_after_rev.jpg


Taken me three weeks basically because a) I can only do an hour or so in the evenings and b) I'm a lazy git, and c) I need a life sometimes and d) I'm a lazy git, and c) the kids won't leave me alone for 5 minutes!

Oh did I say I'm a lazy git? :D

Thanks I just finished, and I had to share my pain with someone.
 
Looks a bit strange with the carpet (pic with shoes in), but quite a striking looking wood, bit more interesting than the usual (beech?) kinda plain types you see people using.

Nice work, you get extra man points for doing DIY too :cool:
 
Thanks, thats actually a mat built into the floor by the front door. Where the wood ends and the mat starts marks the demarcation between the old part of the house (1880's) and the new extension that was done around 2000 (before we bought it)

Eventually I plan to go across where the mat is with more wood, but its exactly one board widths difference in height between the old floor and new, so until I work out what I'm doing I'll put a kick strip across.

Next step is the living room which is adjacent to this hallway (you can see the door going into it from the second before/after pics) I've finished the hallway floor going a few inches into the living room.

Its been tough, much harder than I thought it would be.
 
should have fitted Karndean :D , how much was all the wood.

I am laying some Knight-tile Karndean in my bedroom after having a leak from the rad and it warped the laminate, screeded the floor before and waitin for it to dry.

I would have layed it length ways so it follows the longer bit of the hall, plus you would have had less cutting to do.
 
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cheets64 said:
should have fitted Karndean :D , how much was all the wood.

I am laying some Knight-tile Karndean in my bedroom after having a leak from the rad and it warped the laminate, screeded the floor before and waitin for it to dry.

I would have layed it length ways so it follows the longer bit of the hall, plus you would have had less cutting to do.
Click to expand...

As it happens your supposed to lay it the long way down the hall, i dont know why its just what most fitters say and manufacturers, unless this stuff is different. How ever i would lay it that way as well as i think it looks better

EDIt goods job looks nice
 
Gavin said:
As it happens your supposed to lay it the long way down the hall, i dont know why its just what most fitters say and manufacturers, unless this stuff is different. How ever i would lay it that way as well as i think it looks better

EDIt goods job looks nice
Click to expand...


Surely you have to lay floor boards perpendicular to the joists :confused:
 
Laying the flooring long ways down the hall makes the hallway seem bigger than it is. The way you have layed them across has made it seem narrower and smaller in general. Nice flooring though, I just think you should have done it long ways.

Edit: I now see you have the hall way running in two directions. Ok if this is the case, as it is here. The best way to lay flooring is to do it diagonal. Yes lots of cutting but it will make the whole hallway (both directions) a lot more spacious and have a reall good feel to it. I was told by many people who lay floors that if you have a square room, laying diagonal, corner to corner makes the room 'appear' 25% bigger to the eye. Great for when you want to sell the house and theres little furniture in there. People will think OMG its Hooooge
 
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Very nice job, real wood flooring is hard work.

And i see that you had to go around a corner into effectively a second hallway and had to run the boards across the hall at some point, as they run lengthways later on

^^ for those who hadn't noticed ;)

And diagonal cutting would have been a ballache :D
 
SB118 said:
Very nice job, real wood flooring is hard work.

And i see that you had to go around a corner into effectively a second hallway and had to run the boards across the hall at some point, as they run lengthways later on

^^ for those who hadn't noticed ;)

And diagonal cutting would have been a ballache :D
Click to expand...

Yeah but the smallest bit of the hallway has it lendgth ways, where its normally looks better with the largest part of the flooring running in the direction of the way you walk in the room, granted he woud of had to have to do it width ways for the smaller bit of the hall.
 
Neato!

Did you hide any time capsules or anything for future builders to find under the floorboards?
 
Heh thanks for all the comments guys.

Lengthways running of boards: Thats how I originally planned it before pulling up all the chipboard that was down and finding the joists running the other way. Plus the following points:

1. I wasn't about to start replacing or re-running the joists to fit
2. Yes the hallway is effectively U shaped, so wherever I went I would have some running the other way.
3. I don't think it makes the hallway look smaller IRL
4. No way on earth I was going to do diagonal that would be madness imho
5. As you can see from the plan below I am actually going to run the flooring into the living room next door and the dining room on the other side of the front door.

Area1 is what I have done, Area2,3 &4 are greyed just to differentiate them, but Area2 is next and its going to flow throuh the doorway from Area1 and the floor joists run vertically as they did in Area1

floorplan.jpg
 
Pinter75 said:
Nice, but did you leave an expansion gap? It looks as if it is butted up to the skirting.
Click to expand...

Yes there is about a 5mm expansion gap at either end of each board, the boards go under the skirting board :) That was one of my pre-requisites, I wanted it under the skirting, and I didn't want to have to remove the skirting to get it to fit! Which I managed to do. *phew*

I was pretty adamant I didn't want it abutting the skirting, personally I don't like that look and you have to put something down to cover the expansion gap.
 
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