Each level of the house has a different flooring story.
First floor: The professional flooring crew installed redwood heartwood sleepers on the first floor concrete. Typically, installing untreated wood directly on concrete is a big "no-no" because concrete can wick moisture through the foundation. However, given our 6 mm of poly and the 10 inches of foam, and the fact that we're on a hill, gave us confidence that using a rot resistant wood such as the heart of redwood trees would do the trick. The guys at Siwek lumber were great to trouble shoot this project with and were willing to problem solve my irregular request. The flooring crew then installed leftover 1x10s on the sleepers to create a subfloor. On top of that, they installed 1.5" cherry. Why cherry? There was surplus cherry flooring at Siweks at a deep discount ($2/sqft!). And, it's pretty :) The downside to using surplus? A lot of blunt ends. This meant that the crew had to custom notch tongues and grooves. Once the cherry was installed, the crew sanded, and sealed the floors using a Bona water-based poly. Second Floor: We reclaimed 1.5" white oak hardwood floors from a house that was being torn down in St. Paul a number of years ago. Half of the wood was installed in the triplex and the remainder sat in our basement. Using that and another ~250sqft of white oak floor donated by our architect who happened to be renovating her house, we installed this reclaimed flooring on the second level of the Strawhouse. I was overly ambitious and started this project while Peter was away, thinking that I could take 4 days off of work and get most of it done. As it turned out, my bills at the MN legislature sort of blew up and needed a lot of attention, which mean I had little time for the project. Peter came home to a partially finished project and graciously worked with me over the next several weekends to get the rest install. We got up to about the last 3 rows on the west and east (the point at which you have to top nail) and the professional flooring crew showed up. The crew finished the rows (using glues to my chagrin), sanded, and sealed the floors using a Bona water-based poly. Third floor: Because our subfloor is exposed underneath (its visible as the ceiling in the kitchen), we had a lot of conversation on whether to use 2" staples or glue. I want to refrain from using glues because they are fossil based and non compostable. Using staples makes the floor deconstructable. In any case, the concern was that the nails would protrude the subfloor and be visible. We went the staple route. The crew installed 1.5" red oak (again, surplus deal at Siweks). And in the end, the staples don't really show! Like the first to floors, the crew also sanded and sealed the new floors. After all of that work, our normal carpenter crew covered our new floors with some sort of protective sheet good, which will be removed once all of the hard construction is complete.
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AuthorKatie Jones and Peter Schmitt chronicle their building adventure. Archives
January 2024
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