Well... we installed our floor in the den/living room/dining room. Yay! We started in the den and worked our way eastward towards the dining area. All and all, it was relatively easy. Except maybe for the back-breaking bending over part. And the anxiety of making the wrong cuts and running out of flooring. And the saga of the air compressor that wouldn't start in the mornings. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
The installation team for this event consisted of the brother-in-law and me. My spouse distracted the baby in the back room so that the pneumatic nailer and table saw didn't upset him too badly. B-i-L was in charge of the cut list and the master plan (which I printed out for him). He did a pretty good job of keeping me honest. I only deviated once (my fault, not his, although he might argue this point). We were able to install approximately 100 sq ft a day for a total of just under 400 sq ft.
As previously mentioned, our floor is Teragren Synergy Java strand bamboo.
Here's a photo of the den before we started.
We layed a layer of 1/4" thick cork down between the flooring and the subfloor. This was to help insulate the floor for both temperature and sound.
The den turned out to be a dimension that created no waste (12 feet wide). This was great and made the install much faster. Here are some photos of the layout.
I used a pneumatic nailer. I'd originally rented a manual one, but after practicing with it a couple of times, I realized the error of my ways (much harder to use than a pneumatic floor nailer) and went back to rent the right tool.
Here's a photo of the completed den floor. This took one day.
The air compressor that I rented kept tripping the breaker. The Hertz rental place guy said it was that the voltage on my circuit was too low, but I plugged it in on several different circuits (15amp and 20amp, both with and without an extension cord) and it still had a hard time starting. It seemed like the motor was binding up because of a sticky axle. B-i-L and I had to spend more than 15 minutes each morning trying to get the thing started. The the last day it wouldn't start at all so I had to run to Home Depot to rent another air compressor. It worked great and made me wish I'd rented from HD instead of Hertz.
Here's a photo of me cutting the flooring planks to length. It looks like I'm using the fence in the photo, but I'm not.
Day two. I wore knee pads in the beginning of the project, but I eventually ditched them since it was faster to just bend over. More painful at the end of the day, too. The buckets in the next photo are being used to weigh down the floor next to the wall since I couldn't use the nailer in tight locations. I glued the flooring in these spots since I didn't want to nail through the top of the floor (as is common practice).
B-i-L took a photo of the floor that I thought showed the color and visual texture quite well.
Here's a photo of the fireplace and future hearth location. We centered the flooring planks on the fireplace.
This was the end of day two.
As I was bringing the air compressor inside for the night, I noticed the view from our entryway. The angle makes it look like the flooring is complete, and this really perked me up.
We took Christmas day off.
Here's a good shot of me using cutoff pieces as hammering blocks. I used them to get the flooring planks nice and tight.
This was the end of day three.
Day four had me worried since I had to spend time renting a new air compressor and I didn't want to run out of time (we try to put the baby to bed by 7:30).
I had to glue the last four rows of flooring down. The buckets of leftover wall clay and the leftover flooring planks were great weights.
I returned all of the equipment the next day. I told Hertz about my problems and they chose to only charge me for two days' rental of the nailer and not at all for the compressor. While disappointed in the overall rental experience, they made up for it in the end.
The floor looks great! B-i-L thinks the heaters turn on less frequently, too. We put felt pads on all the furniture to minimize the risk of scratches to the floor. All that's left is the trim work.
