Once that is done we decided to lay down tar paper which is good for a moisture barrier, or at least thats what Dave told me it was for. Be careful to not get it on your walls. That stuff sticks and you are gonna have to repaint over the mess up. Sadly I tried to work too fast and I got some of the tar-ikyness on my striped wall. But its all fixed now, some fresh paint did the job. But laying out the moisture barrier is pretty easy. Just lay that out, make sure it all lines up and use a good stable gun. After my mess up with the wall, my job changed to stapler, as you can see from this unfortunate picture Dave got while I was working.
Once you get ready to lay out the hard wood floor, may I suggest one major purchase, an air compressor. Its completely worth the money. If we rented one for the time period it took to complete our floors then we would have paid for for it 5 times over or so. Also a mitre saw, We already had one when we extended our kitchen entryway. After that purchase, you must rent a nailer. Its about $35.00 a day from Home Depot.
About two maybe three weeks ago, Dave and I rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Its amazing how different the house is. After 25 years of being a rental home, this house really needed some 'tender love and care'. In almost one year Dave and I have really put some love into this home. The den, hallway and kitchen took about three/four days and luckily we had some help from some friends (only after some extreme begging) to finish up the living room and dining room area.
All of our hard work paid up in the end. We are so happy with it, although it would have been great to have gone a vacation and come back and the floors were done for us. But since we did it ourselves, I'm a bit more prideful about it all. I hand picked each grain/plank and David nailed an estimated 5,000 nails. Our big reveal will come really soon, here is a sneak peak of the work we've done.
You can definitely do this stuff yourself. With a little knowledge, some fancy tools that you will surely use again especially if you are a DIYer, you can save some money in labor costs and be a proud of your own wood floors.
