[Closed] Laying hardwood floor

Done loads. About as tricky as Lego to be fair.

Trick is getting the edges right (particularly round door frames etc. I've always found it easier to remove and refit/replace skirting boards as it gives a good finish, the floor has somewhere to expand into and you don;t need to use those edging strips.

Done several, it's basically straightforward but can be time consuming. Hire a portanailer, watch some youtube videos, preparation is everything

I have always removed skirting, however I have seen a job where beading was used that was nearly as high as the existing skirting. It looked very good finished, like a slightly fancy profile skirting board.

Cutting under door frames I used a multi tool with a saw bit, saved loads of time.

As an aside, how bad are your existing floorboards? Could they be worth sanding and osmoing for example?

Oh and buy some knee pads

What sort of flooring? The Click-lock stuff is a doddle, others can be a bit more hassle.

Yeah, some questions...

What type of flooring - click, solid, engineered?

And how are your floorboards underneath? Level or a bit uppy-downy?

As above, proper job is to remove skirting and replace (or-re-fit though this can be a bit false economy...) but if just a bedroom, you a beading to match the skirting might suffice - or say, a 2 or 3 inch bullnose, secondary skirting painted and caulked in to match the skirting again - kind of as described by Vader.

Most of it is very straightforward - if you can measure, subtract 10mm and cut straight, it's ok. However, it's the detail that always shows - so fitting under architraves/frames/jambs, scribes around pipes, thresholds etc. But feel free to ask away and I'll answer any questions as best I can.

What type of flooring – click, solid, engineered?

Good question, not sure I fully know the difference, I don't want cheap laminate. Ideally solid wood with some form of T&G edges would be good.

And how are your floorboards underneath? Level or a bit uppy-downy?

There are some broken boards where the carpet is dropping into the gap, I've not had the carpet up but I'd imagine they look terrible and are not all that even!

Existing skirting is cheap and crap, room is mostly square with an indent where there is a built in cupboard in the spare room. Radiator pipes are something I'd not considered.

portanailer

I'm going to have to look that up, no idea what it is!

Thanks all!

Never done a floor but I've done plenty or architraves and skirting. I will never do wood skirting again; for my last project I went to a PVCu supplier and bought strips of PVCu about 100mm x 8mm with one rounded corner and glued it to the wall. The result is fantastic; it doesn't need painting, sticks well, conforms well, can be curved, is discrete, waterproof, looks far far better than timber.

Portanailer is a device which holds flooring nails at the correct angle to drive them into the tongue of the t&G and thus through into the subfloor/joists beneath. Nails are then hidden from view when the next board goes onto the tongue. The portanailer also whacks the boards up tight to the next one as you go. Depending on your flooring you may not need one.
In addition you are probably going to want some additional tools that you may not have - chop saw, jigsaw, variety of large hole drilling bits, punches etc. Once you add that up it may look better value to get someone in of course, depending what you have and intend to do in the future

Terrible boards can be made to look really great with time and effort, assuming you have a house that suits. Last ones I did we scraped and sanded the floor, did a few repairs that are now hidden under furniture and then waxed. It looks superb and suits our gentrified victorian slum. 1980's bungalow probably not so much.

There are some broken boards where the carpet is dropping into the gap, I’ve not had the carpet up but I’d imagine they look terrible and are not all that even!

The broken boards will still need repairing to flush with rest of the floor. Any uneven bits will show through in traffic areas, even with a solid thick underlay.

I really don't like the clip together stuff; still feels like a floating floor and awkward corners can be really hard to sort. Nail down hardwood can be fitted straight onto joists so you may not have to repair existing floor. You don't use underlay with nail down boards.
It's only when you have the first two rows fixed down and completely straight (this is the tricky part of the job) that laying boards with a portanailer becomes easy, infact I disagree with the comments laying a hardwood floor is easy...have seen a lot of appalling diy efforts!

Make sure you know where the pipe and cable runs are beforehand. Floorboards in a bad state probably mean someone’s been potentially messing about. Most of our loose boards are from when someone hacked about to fit central heating, and was obviously doing as fast a job as possible

Done a few floors and it's not too much of a drama but the portanailer is an absolute must in my book.

I've recently laid about 30sqm of bamboo flooring, like solid wood apart from it has to be glued down as it splinters if nailed.

Once the first two rows were down it wasn't too difficult, bit time consuming as (due to gluing) had to dry lay it, cut, lift and re-lay.

Turned out really well and looks ace. New skirtings and undercut frames finish it off properly.