Installing Hardwood Flooring

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MOTHER'S HANDBOOK

Its the only rewarding job where you start at the bottom and stay there.

IMAGINE WAKING UP ONE morning to be greeted by the texture of moist clay or cold, hard stone beneath your feet. If this doesn't sound appealing to you, neither did it to our enterprising forebears, who found their solution in wood. Abundant and easily worked, blade-hewn timbers made a strong, natural covering for the structure underfoot, and with time evolved into the smooth, square-planed surfaces we've become accustomed to seeing in houses of every stripe.

The fact is that although hardwood floors are the benchmark of expensive homes, the materials are usually less costly than good carpet—certainly if they're already in place and need only to be renewed. And though it could be argued that modern carpeting or resilient flooring is easier to care for (that's why such products have become so popular in the last few decades), the advent of nail-tough urethane finishes and strict attention to quality control among wood-floor manufacturers have all but pulled the rug from under such once-sound logic.

A Shoe's-Eye View

Even if you have no interest in installing flooring yourself, it pays to find out what's happening beneath your feet before you get the floor man in for an estimate. And if you're determined to try your hand at laying in your own boards—or merely refinishing the ones already there—the walkthrough that follows will do a good deal to guide your way.

Let's assume you're just looking, for now. Chances are, if you're not in the building trade, you don't realize that there's more out there than the common oak-strip flooring. The two major woodflooring associations in the U.S.—National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association and Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association—set the specifications and grading rules for oak, beech, birch, hard maple and pecan floor products. (The harder softwoods—southern pine, Douglas fir and western larch—are graded by their own associations' standards.)

To get things straight: Strip flooring is normally 3/4" (25/32") thick and 2 1/4" wide, though it can range in width from 1 1/2" to 3 1/2". Lengths are random, from small "shorts" of 9" to 18", to special-order pieces a full 16' long.

Other thicknesses—5/16", 1/2" and 3/8"—are made in several widths for particular applications. Plank flooring covers 3/4" boards from 3" to 8" in width; 5/16" thick plank, made without tongueand-groove joints, is called squareedge flooring. Several types of block flooring also exist. Unit and laminated parquet blocks are generally 1/2" or 3/4" thick and measure 9" X 9".

Slat blocks—with the familiar mosaic and parquet patterns—are usually thinner, with flat edges, and come in 6" to 30" squares.