Last night was the big push to finish installing the hardwood flooring in the bedroom. I'm fortunate that I don't have to make a living at installing hardwood flooring since I installed about one box every two hours. Keep in mind that I was walking out to the garage to make the cuts and the garage is at the opposite end of the house. The next room will be the small bedroom at the back of the house. Then the girl's bedroom which will be painted pink and purple (ick...their choice though). The floor looks great. I, of course, can pick out all the imperfections but I must admit that I like the look of cherry.
Fortunately Mrs. Bugbear is very pleased with the floor and sympathetic to my screaming back and creaking knees.
Next up is painting and installing the baseboard and trim around the window and doors. With my encouragement Mrs. Bugbear has decided to use a flat square trim. At the old house we used a 'Colonial' trim and painting and installing the trim was a pain. The advantage of the flat trim is that I don't have to cope the corners and painting will be quicker and easier than on the 'Colonial' trim.
Some good advice, when selecting hardwood flooring always pick natural wood. The flooring manufacturer's generally don't produce the same colors from one year to the next. So trying to match the lovely gunstock oak you bought last year (or last month) can be impossible.
What do you mean by 'square' trim? Do you mean something like a square version of quarter round? Or some form of baseboard?
ReplyDeleteI painted for a living some summers in University and College. Trim can be a pain to install, but is mostly easy to paint if you go about it in the right fashion.
The trick is mostly in the brush type and brush loading, although the sort of paint plays a role. If you are good, you shouldn't need to mask and can thus paint much quicker (masking is an incredible time sync to do right and if you do it wrong, you can leave chunks of tape or tear out chunks of paint).
I prefer enamels (and I think that implies alkyd base) despite their stinkiness for baseboards. They wipe clean very easily and the enamel is hard and resists chips very well. It does reek though.
Glad to see you are done the floor. I'd agree with your choice of natural wood for its looks alone, although I will say that many places use varnish or stain to hide variations in the wood.
If you want to protect against 'hey I need some replacement wood', you can just buy some extra and store it when you get the initial shipment. Same with tiles or shingles (we all know Decorius' tiling and shingling nightmares). Spares are critical!
The trim is flat with square corners rather than having a more sculpted profile.
ReplyDeleteTiles are always a problem, the manufacturers do a couple of runs and then change the pattern.
If you pick shingles of a basic color then you shouldn't have a problem.