Few more tips on laying Harwood flooring

By God's Grace I feel I feel I will be completed laying the hardwood flooring this weekend. This has taken most of February but it sure looks good and has added allot of extra light as now it is bouncing back off the floor. I will have some pictures to post after tomorrow with hopefully the trim and all set as well.

I have some really useful tips to help you not make the same mistakes I made.
When in tight spots and the nailer can't be used I am using a 21/2 finishing naile gun to secure the ends or area were the nailer won't fit. The problem here is the nail won't go in flush and I would try to drive it in flush but usually would split the board were the nail was.

Solution was to get a wire cutter and cut the nail flush to the board. It doesn't have to be totally flush as there is some give in the joints. This works especially well when you start off or in tight fits like a hall way or wall face.

When you are in these tight places you can cut a board on a 45 degree and tighten up any joints that were not flush by setting it against the board need to be tightned and hammering it into this board. Since I am doing on a 45 degree angle this is really nice as I just leave this board in place and it keeps the board nice and tight.

I made a mistake of not checking the level of all my doors with the boards running in the direction they would be laid.

What I did was when setting the connection from tile to the hardwood floor I ran the board along the door as if I was setting the floor on a straight pattern and not an angle, so when I began laying the boards at the end of the door way had sunk in some and the boards extended over the jam. This wasn't to bad just a bobo I should have caught.

So remember when setting the board to go from hardwood to tile or carpet make sure you check the height the direction you are running the floor...

I also found using a regular hand stapler works great to keep the tar paper down, just go over them with a hammer and bang them flush no need to buy a tool for this part of the job.

I have taken off from the gym while laying the floor as trying to do to much will over tax your immune system and get you sick. Really looking forward to taking some time off the home projects to get back to my weights. I just added it up and have been working for 7 months on these 2 projects.

Next project is roofing the house and I plan on taking off the shingles as well so this should be a really tough one..

Laying Harwood Flooring build Fireplace Hearth

Sorry it has been a couple of days since I posted I will catch you up on my activities.

We were set to begin the second phase of our remodel, laying down beautiful Bruce Hickory natural wood flooring and I realized the fireplace was going to be an big big problem.

Our fireplace did not have a hearth as it was even with the floor so being natural rock this caused allot of jagged edges uneven surface. To have the 3/4" hardwood flooring butt up against this and look anywhere decent was going to a near impossible.

Solution was to build the hearth up so I did 8" as this was all I could for clearance to the insert.
Fire Hearth Build Pictures So I took Feb.3-4 to build it. The pictures are dark sorry the camera didn't do a very good job.

Began laying the floor on Feb 10-11. The start up was to say the least tough. First you need to lay the tar paper but the real problems was getting the swing of things as you would guess my darling wants the floor set down on a diagonal and this is much much harder as to begin there is allot of cuts. To make the cutting easier I had to go to Lowe's to buy a table saw to make the straight.
Hardwood flooring Before and During Construction I have added the pictures to their own page as the images would take too long to load together.

I will add some really good tips as I go as this is still a learning phase for me as well.

One neat tip I have is not all the pieces are straight and fit well so you have to push them together. Easier said than done especially if you don't have help as some of the pieces are hard to push together without a special tool, and when one board gets off this keeps moving across the floor so here is an easy solution I came up with and really works well.

Cut yourself a couple 2 by 4's about 6 inches place them on the floor flat up against the board you need to push together put a couple nails behing the secound one and hammer in wedge between the boards. Sometimes this is all you need to do sometimes you need to leverage and push them together. This really works well pull the nails out and keep moving . For the ends this is a tricky area as you can put one of the cut 2x4's long ways and butt the other against it nail and apply pressure with the wedge. The good part about this is you can get the nailer in this area beside the 2x4's and nail the boardtight.

I didn't think of this till Sunday as I was having a hard time getting the boards tight and nailing all at the same time. With the studs it is much easier for me as I am putting it down pretty much by myself.

I will post more pictures and tricks as I go.
God Bless,

Surprising Back Pain Trial

23May 2005
The largest ever clinical trial of surgery versus exercise treatments for chronic low back pain has found that patients may obtain as much benefit from an intense exercise and therapy program as from spinal surgery.

The results of the nine-year MRC Spine Stabilization Trial, led by Oxford, were just published online by the British Medical Journal.

The study should help doctors and patients make decisions about the management of back pain.Chronic low back pain is one of the most common ailments that GPs and consultants treat. The condition is painful for patients and treatment is costly for the NHS and the UK economy: This was a UK study but it certainly applies to the USA as well.

Direct costs have been estimated at around £1.6 billion, and the condition is estimated to account for close to 120 million work days lost per year.

For nearly 90 years the same method of spinal surgery has been used to treat low back pain surgery often with mixed results. There has, however, been little evidence to support the assumption that surgery is more effective than the best exercise treatments until now.

The trial, led by Jeremy Fairbank, Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon at the Nuffield Orthopedic Centre, involved 349 chronic back pain patients. 176 were assigned to spinal fusion surgery and 173 to a three-week intensive program of rehabilitation, involving daily exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy.

The rehabilition aimed not only to address physical aspects, but to help patients overcome fear of pain, overcome fear of exercise, learn to cope with the psychological effects of pain, and learn to relax.

There appeared to be a slight advantage to surgical treatment, but the difference only just reached the defined minimum level of clinical significance, and is outweighed by the financial costs.A concurrent study of the economics of the two treatment programs, directed by Dr Alistair Gray of the Institute of Health Sciences, suggests that a strategy of intensive rehabilitation is half the price of a surgical strategy.

Mr Fairbank concluded: ‘There was no clear evidence from our trial that primary spinal fusion surgery was more beneficial than intensive rehabilitation.

Our results suggest that patients eligible for surgery should be offered a rehabilitation program first. We believe it is safer and cheaper than using surgery as the first line of treatment.’ Here is the complete study.

I hope this posting will help someone suffering from back pain seek exercise rather than surgery. Seek another opinion before going under the knife.

I found this especially interesting as I have a ruptured disk in my neck and was advised surgery 9 years ago. I opted to start going to the gym and strengthen the muscles that support the neck and I haven't had a real problem since I started a strength training program.

Sometimes to relive back pain all we need to do is get rid of the front pain ,oversized bellies, putting to much pressure on our lower backs. I just thought this was a worthy article to read.