The end is in sight (at least for the hardwoods)

Work continues on the hardwoods (picture #1), particularly the tricky part of wrapping the sections of tile around the hearth (picture #2) and side entry (picture #3) and then matching the lines up in the hallway to parallel the wall with the closets relatively close. Ended up running different widths on the west side vs. the east side as the widths were about 3/4" off between the two (picture #4 from the laundry room).

It seems to be going a bit easier now but its taken a good bit of time and dry fitting to make sure all of the joints match up as we had to do some custom milling on quite a few of the pieces. If you compare the pictures from last week to this week you can see where we had to fit in several just to the left of the picture by the wood burning stove.

Also got most of the trim milled up and stained to wrap the structural beam in the game room but its still sitting down in the garage waiting to be installed (more pictures of that later).

Hardwoods continued

Hardwood installation continues at about the pace its been going at (maybe 20sqft/hr), we're getting better with controlling the adhesive so we don't have little dabs of goo (outside of Carson marking most everything he touches) but keeping all of the joints nice and tight has proven to be challenging (still). Clamps in a variety of configurations seem to be consistently the best way to pull in any bow/warp in the wood.... although the 8" wide boards are a heckuva lot hard to massage into place.

We finished up the family room on Sunday (the pic with then smaller pile of hardwood flooring) and got some trim put up in the dining room and knocked out quite a few of the really long runs from the family room to the den/away room last night. We'll have to do quite a bit of dry fitting around the tile on the side entry and hearth to ensure tight fits but have it close enough now that we should be able to get most of that done without putting any additional strips down for a bit.

Semblance of Normality

The latest deadline for action was super bowl Sunday as we had a few folks over for the game.  The game room was the biggest milestone and its fully functional but not quite done as the rock on the fireplace is still waiting in lieu of the hardwoods in the family and dining rooms.  

Heres a shot into the dining room and kitchen from the family room, you can see the hardwoods and a series of progression shots of the kitchen from original mess to latest (2/4/08).