Hardwood Flooring - Selection & Underlayment

While the main part of the house has old hardwood floors that were previously refinished, the side wing of my home was an old neighborhood grocery store and had tile underfoot. When I first bought the house in 2007 I had other things to address (like evicting the raccoons living the living room wall and getting electrical outlets on the second floor) so even though I knew that I wanted hardwood eventually I decided to replace the carpet that was over the tile for the time being.

The carpet had to be replaced because the previous owners were heavy smokers and beside being stained, replacing the carpet was the only way to get rid of the smell. Getting the side wing liveable was pretty important since that was the part of the house I was living in while the main part was gutted to the studs. I remember meeting with the carpet installer to go over the estimate and then asking him how soon he could get in to install the carpet. He asked me what difference did it make since I obviously wasn't living in the house with it all torn apart. I laughed and told him that yes I was actually crazy enough to be living in the house. He was quite surprised and made sure to get my carpet in pretty quick.

Fast forward almost six years and my dreams of hardwood flooring in the side wing are finally coming true. I had done a lot of research and decided I wanted to get my flooring at Chelsea Plank Flooring. They make all of their flooring from hardwood trees in the Northern Midwest so it has a tight grain that would be similar to the old floors in the rest of my house. On top of that it is made locally and the factory store is only half an hour away from Ann Arbor.

The factory store had a small showroom with several samples of the hardwood flooring on display on the walls and floor. The main part of the house has 2-1/4" oak that has a honey color to it. I wanted something that would look nice with it, but not try to match it since it would always be off and look strange. I was set on getting something with a 2-1/4" width otherwise known as strip flooring. The sales lady patiently looked up which types of hardwood they had in stock in strip flooring and then Frank and I mulled them all over.

We decided to go with the Northern White Ash with Oxford stain. Ash has a grain similar to oak so it would work well with my existing floors and it has a Janka hardness of 1320 so it should wear well. We liked the dark Oxford stain since it wouldn't look like we were intentionally trying to match the floors.

Just to check we put a few sample pieces of the Oxford Ash against some flooring at the store that looked close to what is in the main part of the house and it looked great.

The Oxford Ash strip flooring was also on overstock special so the price was marked down from the already low factory pricing. The next thing I knew we were buying 26 boxes (546 sq. ft.) of flooring, enough for all three bedrooms in the side wing plus the hallway. The bathroom and laundry/mudroom in the side wing are going to have tile, but that is a story for another day.

The flooring has been sitting in our house for a while and now that it has acclimated we decided that the first room that would get the new hardwood would be Frank's man cave. After Frank had pulled up the carpet and pad and I removed all of the tack strips and nails the floor was ready for underlayment. Underlayment is important because it can help with squeaking of your hardwood rubbing against the subfloor plus it can make it easier to slide your boards together.

I ended up putting down the underlayment on Saturday while I was waiting for the wall paint to dry before painting the stripes. Luckily the floor was already pretty flat so I didn't need to do any leveling. Because there were a few spots where the tiles were chipped or missing I decided to use 30 lb. roofing felt which is a little thicker than the 15 lb. felt. The tiles are super thin so once the felt was over the missing spots you couldn't tell where the missing spots were.

I started by rolling out the felt against the long wall in the room.

I then used my stapler to tack down the felt.

I cut my strips of felt long and then creased them at the wall. I then used an X-Acto knife to trim the excess off. 

For 15 lb. felt you overlap the strips of felt but because the 30 lb. is thick you just butt the edges together. It all went pretty quickly until I had to deal with the closet but eventually I got the whole floor covered.

At this point on Saturday evening I couldn't wait to get the started on laying the hardwood but it seemed wiser to finish painting first so Frank and I started it on Sunday. I'll share about that later this week.

Michigan Racing Stripes For the Man Cave

After getting the plywood up on the ceiling and carpet pulled up from the floor in the man cave it was time to do something about the walls. Frank is a huge Michigan Football fan so there was no question that the room was going to be Michigan themed in Maize and Blue (the University's colors).

I thought that all Maize or all Blue walls might be a little overpowering so I suggesting to Frank that painting the walls white and having Maize and Blue racing stripes encircle the room would be cool. Frank thought it was a great idea so we went with it.

Here is what the room looked like before we painted:

The walls were pretty filthy so the first step was to wash it down with TSP followed by two coats of Benjamin Moore's Spanish White.

While waiting for the second coat to dry I laid down the roofing felt underlayment for the hardwood floor. I'll go into more detail about the hardwood later this week.

Once the paint was dry Frank and I taped off the stripes in the room. We made the top stripe 5" and the bottom 13" tall.

In order to get the stripes crisp and sharp we used a credit card to rub across the painter's tape to make sure it was really well adhered to the wall.

The next step was to paint Spanish White over the tape along the edges where the stripes would get painted. This is critical for getting a perfect line because any bleed through under the tape is in Spanish White which matches the wall. 

Next it was time to paint the stripes. I bought Benjamin Moore's Glimmer and Polo Blue which I thought matched Frank's Michigan football helmet pretty well.

I started with the top stripe using a 6" roller to paint it Glimmer. Two coats gave it good coverage. 

As soon as I finished the Glimmer I pulled off the top strip of tape. If you leave the tape on after it dries you risk pulling up some of your paint. I then rolled two coats of Polo Blue on the bottom strip.

I peeled off the tape and was pretty happy with the result. Most importantly, Frank loves it. I think it is going to turn out to be a really cool room once we are done. Next up hardwood flooring!

Meanwhile In the Man Cave

When I last left off I had pulled down two layers of ceiling tiles in the room that will become Frank's man cave back in February. I had left up the last of the furring strips to stabilize the crumbling plaster and it looked like this:

Life got in the way and while the project was on hold for so long huge chunks of plaster came down so the ceiling looked like this:

It seemed like the best thing to do was to scrape the rest of the plaster off the lathe before we put up the plywood for the tin ceiling. While I was taping, mudding and sanding in the hallway Frank pulled down the rest of the plaster and furring strips. It was a huge mess but the ceiling was now ready to put up the plywood substrate.

Next, while I was painting the hallway, Frank tackled pulling up the nasty carpet and carpet pad. We knew we were going to get rid of it for hardwood so it was pretty gross from ceiling debris by this time. 

At the end of Saturday the room looked like this:

This whole side wing on the house has green floor tiles from when it was a small neighborhood grocery store. They are pretty stained and damaged but it is neat to see the evidence of the house's past.

With the ceiling plaster and carpet gone it was time to get the plywood up on the ceiling. The tin ceiling we ordered is a traditional nail up type so we need the plywood to act as a substrate to nail into. We rented a drywall lift from Home Depot on Sunday for the job. Our local store didn't have one available so we had to go to one a little farther away but it was worth it.

We cut the plywood so that the ends would meet on ceiling joists and used the drywall lift to maneuver the plywood into place. Since Frank is tall and can reach the ceiling without a step ladder he was in charge of screwing the plywood into the joists.

While Frank was doing that I was down on the floor pulling out all of the carpet tack strips as well as the billion or so staples that secured the carpet pad to the floor. 

At the end of the day on Sunday the room looked like this:

We still have a good bit to do like paint the walls, install the tin ceiling and lay the hardwood but it seems like we are getting somewhere. As Frank said the room looks like it has gone from someplace that should be condemned to a room that is under construction.