Hardwood flooring is all the rage nowadays as most stylistic houses opt for hardwood flooring in their houses. Are you someone who wants to get into the trend and make their house look modern and stylish? Rest assured, this guide is dedicated to teaching you how to install hardwood flooring for your home.
Most people believe hardwood flooring adds incredible warmth and style to the house. Not only is it quite durable, but it’s quite prevalent in a lot of colors. However, before one delves deeper into the subject, it is imperative to decide which type of installation to opt for.
Types of hardwood flooring installation
There are three types of hardwood flooring installation:
- Click-lock: As the name implies, it requires clicking or locking the panels together.
- Glue-down: One of the most popular methods, the glue is used to secure the boards together.
- Nail-down: The most durable method of all three. The nails are not even visible after installation making it a beautiful choice. However, it has the biggest downside of being the most expensive method.
Prep Steps
Now that you’ve picked a method to go with, it’s time to move on to the next step: the installation of the hardwood flooring.
The first step is always being aware of all the prep work that will go into this. You want to start with the subfloor and how the different types of hardwood flooring would complement that. We want to make sure the subfloor is smooth and perfectly flat. This will help us a lot with the installation process.
Get some moisture inhibitor so you can help dampen the noise and protect the board from underneath. Now you want to accurately mark the dimensions and where you’ll be attaching your hardwood. You can use chalk for this step.
Now you want to sort the boards in order. This order will be the order you’ll be installing them. This is called racking the board and is expected from experts of the craft.
The installation begins
Now that you’re done with the prep work, it’s time to get to the actual meat of the matter. This guide assumes you went with a nail-down installation method for hardwood flooring.
Start with putting the first board in, and drill some holes into it. The holes shouldn’t be that spaced apart from each other. Now start putting nails in those holes. You want to push the two boards together and nail them shut. This will keep them closed together to each other. Note that only the first and last rows of the flooring need to be properly nailed. With the rest, you can just nail the tongue only.
With this, you’ve successfully installed hardwood flooring in your house. Congratulations!
