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Thought I'd post up a few pics in case anyone was considering doing a similar job. I'd never done a hardwood floor install, but I figured "how hard could it be?"

We've been planning on redoing our dining room over the past few months - we were tired of looking at the previous owner's 11x15 ode to the 1980's with bad 80's wallpaper and floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

A couple of weekends ago I tore down the large mirrors with the assumption that I'd have to redo the drywall on the main wall to which the mirrors were adhered. Luckily, I was able to save the existing walls with some delicate cutting and patching. The wallpaper pulled down like tape, but left some delicious 20 year old glue which took a few days to clean up.

We found some 5" Brazilian Cherry flooring that looked really nice, and I took my first shot at installing it over the weekend. The house is on a slab, so I ran over to the depot and rented a Hilti .27 caliber nailgun to affix 3/4" subfloor (man that thing is hard on the hands), and a Porta-Nailer stapler to lay the flooring.

The job is pretty straightforward, though tedious and more time consuming than I originally imagined. I went with staples as I figured they would be more apt to redirect under the subfloor if they pegged the slab versus a cleat - and you can normally get an average of about 10 good staples before 1 gets bunged up and needs to be surgically fixed. Once you set the first few rows with finishing nails, you have enough room to use the nailer. I found that setting the compressor at 95 pounds got me the desired 80 or so at the gun, and it was relatively smooth sailing from there. POINT OF NOTE! We had 8 cases of flooring, and I pulled randomly from all of them to insure we had a nice random pattern throughout the installation. 85% of the boards in each case were between 12" and 36" in length - the last 15% were 5-7', which I didn't discover until we had completed about 70% of the floor :shocked: It took some creative cutting with a chop saw to keep the pattern consistent (once you cut a board, it flattens 1 side and the groove is no longer usable, so you have to use those pieces as edges along the walls).

In the end, it took the better part of 2 afternoons to finish up the flooring - and I'd say if you are considering doing the job, jump right in, as they really look great. I am excited to see them darken to their final color.

Here's a couple of pics of the process:

Mirrors pulled and begin patching
http://esport.sportbikes.com/wwwthreads/UBBimages5/1092946-mirrors.down.jpg

http://esport.sportbikes.com/wwwthreads/UBBimages5/1092946-patching.done.jpg

http://esport.sportbikes.com/wwwthreads/UBBimages5/1092946-setting.row.jpg

http://esport.sportbikes.com/wwwthreads/UBBimages5/1092946-finshed.2.jpg

http://esport.sportbikes.com/wwwthreads/UBBimages5/1092946-finished.jpg

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