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K. Here goes, again. As promised, here’s the report with pic’s on our
wood block flooring project. I posted it on the main page the other day,
but didn’t seem to get all the pictures. Soooo, I will send the pictures
in a sequence of several following messages. I hope this works. If not,
feel free to email me directly, and I’ll see if I can send the pictures
that way. [Grrrrrrr! Cyberspace! Building a house was a piece of cake
compared to dealing with the computer world! :’) ]
*****************************************
A search through the archives of this site should reveal a few conversations about this subject, as my husband and I were readying to have our house built – probably winter/spring of 1999. Much wonderful and generous advice was shared by contributors to this board, and if you ever think you’d like to do this yourself, this is the place to be!
Briefly, it all started with a visit to friends in Olympia who had done this floor many years ago – it’s absolutely beautiful, unique, and has that elegance/rustic look of casual, comfortable, uncontrived ambiance that we were looking for. Their floor was of end cut, 1/2″ 4×4’s, fir, oiled. For their home, which is all wood (sigh…), it fit beautifully. They said we were crazy to attempt it, told of the weeks of back breaking labor, but agreed to give guidance if we insisted. I did. That guidance, plus invaluable input from this discussion board, sheer determination (on my part), and taking enough steps ($) that turning back was no option, got us through!
THE WOOD: 6×6″ fir posts, 8′ long. In an effort to maximize visual sense of space in our modest sized home, I chose the larger dimensions. Now I do remember the WOOD BLOCK FLOORING EXPERT, or someone else, said we should use wood with no more than 5% moisture content, to minimize shrinkage. HA! What a laugh. In Alaska? The day we went to the lumber yard to pick it up, it was raining. They sent us to the END of the yard, to an uncovered(!) stack of wet posts, in the mud next to the railroad tracks. So much for low moisture.
THE SAW: Ah, yes. The trouble, you see, with 6×6’s, is they take a herkin’ big saw to cut! Geez. I had no idea. Many suggestions reigned from this board, and I must say that this had me stumped for weeks. I was on the verge of giving in to 4×4’s, when our friendly neighbor who owns a huge machine/fabrication shop, offered the use of his equally huge BAND SAW! Eureka!, I thought. No sweat. Well, after two very, very long days of cutting up 1,436 little blocks of wood, 3/4″ thick, hubby and I were REAL tired. But, of course, it was worth it. Nice, neat, even blocks, stacked on a palette – they even shrink wrapped the stack and made room in a corner of the heated shop to help the blocks dry out. ‘Cannot thank them enough!
INSTALLATION: So, when construction reached the stage of near completion, we began installation. It would certainly have been less stressful if we had been able to do this part after all the subs were gone, but timing precluded that, so we worked on it admist floor layers, tilers, plumbers, etc., etc. to the very end.
ADHESIVE: A real dilemma. The green stuff in the pic’s is a product we got from our flooring supplier. It was their best guess. The obstacle we had to face was in-floor heating with gypcrete. We put the recommended glaze over it, spread on the adhesive (which we would not use again), laid the blocks, leaving about 1/4″ spacing around each one – about – 1/4″. This varied a lot. At first, we tried putting in those little white rubber tile spacers. No good. Moved too much. Got messed up down deep, since the blocks were 3/4″ thick….. So, since we cared not about accurate lines, and are happy with a rustic “cobblestone” look, we just “eyeballed” it. Worked fine. The adhesive dried too fast, making it very, very thick and difficult to spread as time passed. This, all together, took me 2-1/2 days, with help from a friend and her son.
THE GROUT: Oh, dear. If I thought there was hard work before this, it soon diminished in my mind. After much consideration as to what type of grout to use, we decided on the ol’ glue and sawdust route. Our Olympia friends had used it, with great success for many years, so we went with that. It took about 5 gallons of elmer’s white glue. The sawdust came from our cabinet guy – what a find! He was happy to have us take away as much as we wanted. We loaded up a 30 gallon garbage can – used a little over half.
Someone on this board had recommended a latex product, I believe, but in our area no one could figure out what I was talking about…..the norm for anything out of the ordinary, I’m afraid.
GROUTING: No easy way for this! I mixed up small batches of grout, the consistency of….tuna salad… loaded it into a masoner’s rubber lined bag with a hard metal tip that works like a pastry tube in the kitchen of a French restaurant – that’s where the similarity stops! On hands and knees, (knee pads are crucial!), I began grouting around every single block of wood, being careful not to allow any on the blocks themselves, since we intended to oil the blocks for the finish. SO, as I was hunched over, workmen stomping all around, John happened to notice the wood laminate guys taking scraps out to the trash trailer. STOP! he said. 😉 Or something to that effect [actually, he’s really a calm, cool sorta guy – retired ironworker, so he knows his way around a tool box, bless him – I’ll take one of those any day, over a three-piecer from Wall Street :)]. Anyway, long story short, John spent his time in the garage at the table saw cutting up little stix of wood laminate lengths and poking them in between the blocks – the easier to make my job, bless him! Less grout, less time hunched over on my sore knees, less time sqeezing that bag with my mildly arthritic fingers!!! All in all, with about 5 gallons of the glue, half a barrel of sawdust, and 10 days of work, it was finished. Beautiful. We were pleased.
THE FINISH: We rented a (big) sander, and John went over it twice, plus along the edges with his new belt sander (I mean, a guy’s gotta have the right tool……) Then,came the BIG decision. To oil, or not to oil. It was imperative that we maintain a calm, flowing sense of space and light in this house. This floor is the “artery” for the whole house. It leads to every room but the master bath. We found that by oiling the end grain of the wood, it immediately turned *dark*, albeit beautiful. However, light and space won the day, and we took the advice of the paint guy at the lumber yard, and applied three coats of clear Verathane. We’re happy. It did not change the color of the beautiful wood grain. It toned down the contrast of the sawdust in the grout with the blocks. It gives a soft, unshiny satin sheen that reflects light, but
Replies
*
K. Here goes, again. As promised, here's the report with pic's on our
wood block flooring project. I posted it on the main page the other day,
but didn't seem to get all the pictures. Soooo, I will send the pictures
in a sequence of several following messages. I hope this works. If not,
feel free to email me directly, and I'll see if I can send the pictures
that way. [Grrrrrrr! Cyberspace! Building a house was a piece of cake
compared to dealing with the computer world! :') ]
*****************************************
A search through the archives of this site should reveal a few conversations about this subject, as my husband and I were readying to have our house built - probably winter/spring of 1999. Much wonderful and generous advice was shared by contributors to this board, and if you ever think you'd like to do this yourself, this is the place to be!
Briefly, it all started with a visit to friends in Olympia who had done this floor many years ago - it's absolutely beautiful, unique, and has that elegance/rustic look of casual, comfortable, uncontrived ambiance that we were looking for. Their floor was of end cut, 1/2" 4x4's, fir, oiled. For their home, which is all wood (sigh...), it fit beautifully. They said we were crazy to attempt it, told of the weeks of back breaking labor, but agreed to give guidance if we insisted. I did. That guidance, plus invaluable input from this discussion board, sheer determination (on my part), and taking enough steps ($) that turning back was no option, got us through!
THE WOOD: 6x6" fir posts, 8' long. In an effort to maximize visual sense of space in our modest sized home, I chose the larger dimensions. Now I do remember the WOOD BLOCK FLOORING EXPERT, or someone else, said we should use wood with no more than 5% moisture content, to minimize shrinkage. HA! What a laugh. In Alaska? The day we went to the lumber yard to pick it up, it was raining. They sent us to the END of the yard, to an uncovered(!) stack of wet posts, in the mud next to the railroad tracks. So much for low moisture.
THE SAW: Ah, yes. The trouble, you see, with 6x6's, is they take a herkin' big saw to cut! Geez. I had no idea. Many suggestions reigned from this board, and I must say that this had me stumped for weeks. I was on the verge of giving in to 4x4's, when our friendly neighbor who owns a huge machine/fabrication shop, offered the use of his equally huge BAND SAW! Eureka!, I thought. No sweat. Well, after two very, very long days of cutting up 1,436 little blocks of wood, 3/4" thick, hubby and I were REAL tired. But, of course, it was worth it. Nice, neat, even blocks, stacked on a palette - they even shrink wrapped the stack and made room in a corner of the heated shop to help the blocks dry out. 'Cannot thank them enough!
INSTALLATION: So, when construction reached the stage of near completion, we began installation. It would certainly have been less stressful if we had been able to do this part after all the subs were gone, but timing precluded that, so we worked on it admist floor layers, tilers, plumbers, etc., etc. to the very end.
ADHESIVE: A real dilemma. The green stuff in the pic's is a product we got from our flooring supplier. It was their best guess. The obstacle we had to face was in-floor heating with gypcrete. We put the recommended glaze over it, spread on the adhesive (which we would not use again), laid the blocks, leaving about 1/4" spacing around each one - about - 1/4". This varied a lot. At first, we tried putting in those little white rubber tile spacers. No good. Moved too much. Got messed up down deep, since the blocks were 3/4" thick..... So, since we cared not about accurate lines, and are happy with a rustic "cobblestone" look, we just "eyeballed" it. Worked fine. The adhesive dried too fast, making it very, very thick and difficult to spread as time passed. This, all together, took me 2-1/2 days, with help from a friend and her son.
THE GROUT: Oh, dear. If I thought there was hard work before this, it soon diminished in my mind. After much consideration as to what type of grout to use, we decided on the ol' glue and sawdust route. Our Olympia friends had used it, with great success for many years, so we went with that. It took about 5 gallons of elmer's white glue. The sawdust came from our cabinet guy - what a find! He was happy to have us take away as much as we wanted. We loaded up a 30 gallon garbage can - used a little over half.
Someone on this board had recommended a latex product, I believe, but in our area no one could figure out what I was talking about.....the norm for anything out of the ordinary, I'm afraid.
GROUTING: No easy way for this! I mixed up small batches of grout, the consistency of....tuna salad... loaded it into a masoner's rubber lined bag with a hard metal tip that works like a pastry tube in the kitchen of a French restaurant - that's where the similarity stops! On hands and knees, (knee pads are crucial!), I began grouting around every single block of wood, being careful not to allow any on the blocks themselves, since we intended to oil the blocks for the finish. SO, as I was hunched over, workmen stomping all around, John happened to notice the wood laminate guys taking scraps out to the trash trailer. STOP! he said. ;) Or something to that effect [actually, he's really a calm, cool sorta guy - retired ironworker, so he knows his way around a tool box, bless him - I'll take one of those any day, over a three-piecer from Wall Street :)]. Anyway, long story short, John spent his time in the garage at the table saw cutting up little stix of wood laminate lengths and poking them in between the blocks - the easier to make my job, bless him! Less grout, less time hunched over on my sore knees, less time sqeezing that bag with my mildly arthritic fingers!!! All in all, with about 5 gallons of the glue, half a barrel of sawdust, and 10 days of work, it was finished. Beautiful. We were pleased.
THE FINISH: We rented a (big) sander, and John went over it twice, plus along the edges with his new belt sander (I mean, a guy's gotta have the right tool......) Then,came the BIG decision. To oil, or not to oil. It was imperative that we maintain a calm, flowing sense of space and light in this house. This floor is the "artery" for the whole house. It leads to every room but the master bath. We found that by oiling the end grain of the wood, it immediately turned *dark*, albeit beautiful. However, light and space won the day, and we took the advice of the paint guy at the lumber yard, and applied three coats of clear Verathane. We're happy. It did not change the color of the beautiful wood grain. It toned down the contrast of the sawdust in the grout with the blocks. It gives a soft, unshiny satin sheen that reflects light, but
Didn't find the photos on the site. I'm interested in seeing how this looks. Could you please e mail some photos. Thanks. ACE