What to do before starting hardwood floor installation?

For best results, professional Chicago flooring company should perform hardwood floor installation but there is no saying you cannot do it yourself if you are equipped for it. Start with taking measurements and purchasing materials. That done, you can prepare base for the boards. There are several options to choose from, depending on the type of floor. The easiest and the least messy way is using existing hardwood floor in good condition.

New boards can also be installed on a previous base, on new plywood subfloor or just directly on the moisture-proofed concrete. Keep in mind though that before preparing base of any kind, you have to remove doors and moldings. When the base is ready, you may want to rush to install floorboards over it but wait. Solid hardwood flooring is quite capricious specie and don’t appreciate sudden changes of moisture and temperature. Newly purchased materials should spend several days in the room/s, where they will be installed to adjust to prevailing conditions.

Successful hardwood floor installation

When your wood materials are ‘seasoned’ and you don’t need to worry that they expand or contract unexpectedly after being installed, you can finally get to making floor layout. Hardwood flooring installation La Grange should be started from the longest straight wall and proceed from there. As a general rule of thumb, boards are laid perpendicularly to the floor joists but it’s not a requirement. That ready, prepare a flooring underlayment of asphalt-laminated Kraft paper, which will provide barrier against moisture and reduce noise made by floor.

Now you can cut and nail boards to the subfloor either by hand or by using mechanical flooring nailer (much easier). When you complete that stage, cut off any sticking paper and fill visible nail holes with putty. Now you only have to sand the floor surface and apply appropriate finish (unless you’ve chosen prefinished material).