This morning is for crawling around, nailing the planks down.
I’ve got a bad knee and a terrible knee: One’s had surgery twice and one was pieced together out of (allegedly) very small pieces. I’m not complaining – Somebody went to a great deal of (well-paid, no doubt) trouble and I’m lucky and pleased to have them both. The terrible one is encased in fiberglass during the day, and rarely a problem. This one open spot used to occasionally let things enter very painfully, until I made a sort of flexible armor out of several layers of Gorilla tape. Now that knee never bothers me.
The other one, though, put up with me crawling around to the tune of maybe as many as 100 finish nails (220 total in the bedroom proper, not counting the closet threshold and that little strip near the interior wall. Yeah. I counted.) and then said, “Y’know, we’re done here.”
Fortunately I keep pads in the Jeep, because you never know when you’ll find yourself kneeling on rocks…
If nothing else, that is the most reparable floor I’ve ever seen. With no glue, no cement, and no tongue & groove, you will be able to pull up individual boards should the need ever arise.
My single concern is one weakness that is shared with those “floating” floors that are so popular these days. Any water spill can spread under the boards and potentially lurk for long periods of time, perhaps even compromising your underlayment if it seeps through your tar paper. If you tend to leave your windows open while you are out, you might want to consider some sort of waterproof covering in that area to protect your floor from blown-in rain.
Grin – you get twice the wear out of a package of knee pads! That looks like a really nice floor. If I ever have the opportunity to be involved with building a house again, I will store this idea in the back of my head.
My bad knee was also pieced back together, & held that way with screws. I understand that the screws added their volume to the joint, but it still seems odd that it’s twice the width of the as-issue (plus wear & tear) other one.The right leg has no taper at all ’til below the knee.
“My single concern is one weakness that is shared with those “floating” floors that are so popular these days. Any water spill can spread under the boards and potentially lurk for long periods of time,”
It should be possible to seal the floor, including the gaps between planks, with a polyurethane coating. Maybe even a marine-grade varnish. That should take care of the problem of water getting underneath.
Yeah, and the problem of water getting underneath isn’t really much of a problem here. Water can get in, and maybe underneath the planks, the first time I leave a window open during a thunderstorm. But then it’s got 10 or 11 months in very low humidity to evaporate before the next wet spell.
Now Claire’s floor, on the other hand…seal away, seal for all you’re worth.