Almost two weeks ago I asked the question of How Hard is Hardwood? Well I have survived the process of putting in around 500 square feet of 3/4″ pre-finished oak hardwood floor. I did have some help and advice from New Beginnings Renovation (father-in-law) since the last time I did this I was 15 or 16 with my daddy.
I started on a Saturday morning at 7:30 pulling the carpet, padding and the tack strips up. 
After 14 years of having carpet down in the living room and no matter how much you vacuum, the amount of dirt and nastiness is unbelievable! With all of that gone, I set the boys to pulling any random staples that held the padding down and to sweeping. At this point, I started to think about leaving the floor as plywood, but the wife had other ideas.
We started by getting one side straight and face nailing it down for a good anchor point. Once it was nailed and a string line put on it to verify the straightness, it started. Using a pneumatic air floor stapler, we started cutting, fitting and nailing. The process was then repeated over and over and over. We put a slight pattern in the floor with doing a 3 1/2″ board followed by two 2 1/2″ boards. As we pushed through the day, that pattern became a pain to remember. However, the biggest pain was not the pattern in the floor, it was the floor stapler! The blasted rented stapler would jam about every twenty-five hits. This would mean that 8 allen wrench screws would need to be removed, the slide cleaned out, the jam removed, everything replaced, the 8 screws replaced and the air hose reconnected. Doing this every twenty-five hits or so started to make the day drag on longer and longer.
I stated that we started around 7:30 AM pulling carpet. It was somewhere close to 9:00 PM when I quit. Yes, I quit! With only seven inches before finishing the living room, I quit. The two of us were stuck in a bent over position that a proctologist would have been happy to see and my “candy hands” were full of blisters from swinging the hammer and fixing the stapler all day. For that day it was over.
Sunday afternoon after church I started back on the last few boards, but the blisters kept that work at a slow pace.
Wednesday afternoon, we started again and made it almost to the door of the foyer and stopped again. This time it was because we could, not because we could not move. Also, after purchasing a new stapler that only jammed once, made the job so much more enjoyable! Word of wisdom, GET A GOOD STAPLER WHEN DOING HARDWOOD. After making a few adjustments to the front door, the job was completed for me. The wife on the other hand decided that painting was now needed, so I turned her loose on that since I am not a painter.
The product is something that I am extremely proud of completing and it even makes the whiteboard look better. It has been something that the wife has wanted since we built the house 14 years ago. Me and my stubbornness wanted carpet and so since it was cheaper and what I wanted, we got it. Big lesson learned here guys, sometimes the cheaper option that we want is not always the best option!
Hardwood is painful if you are not used to it, but so rewarding when it is completed. The pain goes away, the skin returns to normal and you just may pick up a new tool or two along the way (guys will understand that part). The next hardwood project is to do the dining room and kitchen. Next year.