How Do You Lay New Hardwood Floor?
Hardwood floors add a warm, classic beauty and modern-day value to your home. It is a fairly involved process, but we can walk you through it. Run the new flooring at right angles to floor joists. There needs to be a 3/4-inch space left open along all edge of the room. A straight alignment of the first course is important. Place a mark 3/4 inch plus the width of the flooring (3 inches for 2 1/4-inch flooring, 4 3/4 inch for 4-inch flooring and so on) on the end wall near the corner of the starting wall. Place similar mark at opposite corner, and snap a chalk line between the two marks. Lay the first strip tongue edge out from the wall. Nail the first strip 1 inch from the grooved edge (6d or 8d galvanized or screw-shank flooring nails work best). Drive nails straight into the top surface of strips and countersink with nail set (face nailing). Position nails over supporting joists and near ends of strips. (Predrilling nail holes will prevent splits.) Keep the starter strip aligned with
