One floor down...

Hello all. With all the prep done we were ready to work. One thing to remember is that wood expands and contracts with the weather/humidity, so a standard tip is to leave a little space along the walls. We cut a few pieces of 1/4-inch plywood to use as guides to keep us kosher.

This room gave us an immediate opportunity to work around an obstacle. Some careful measuring, planning, and cutting with the jigsaw kept us on our merry way.

One good thing about installing hardwood is that for much of it you can get in a groove of measuring, cutting, laying, and nailing pieces in place. We had drawn a sight line on the paper that was perpendicular to the threshold piece and were pleased with our ability to stay true to that.

One thing really caught us by surprise. More than 9-of-10 times the nails would go in smoothly and not even need countersinking. But there were some spots where they would curl back up and come out the top of the board. 

Turns out pneumatic-driven nails can, when the circumstances are right, catch the grain of the wood and curl to the left or right. After we researched this there are two main remedies--turn the nail gun 90 degrees so that the teeth cut against the grain instead of with it or use heavier gauge (i.e. thicker) nails that have much less susceptibility. We experimented with both and ultimately opted to shift to higher gauge nails.

It took a good deal longer than expected--we'll be exploring ways to improve our efficiency--and there are still multiple rounds of sanding and finishing to go, but we're pretty pleased with the overall result.
 

Until next time.