How to Install Hardwood Flooring (Complete Instructions)
We first ran this article in 2010. It provides detailed instructions for installing hardwood flooring over a wood substructure. It chronicles tutorials for each step of the process, derived from our installation of 3/4 inch solid, tongue-and-groove Brazilian Walnut hardwoods in our own home!
At the bottom, we provide links to posts on the tools we use and frequently recommend for hardwood installation. Below is one picture of the final product. Here’s the rest. This project was a lot of fun. We hope you enjoy the tutorial!
While each hardwood job has its differences and subtleties, this series covers many of the common challenges and pitfalls inherent in every hardwood installation, from leveling the subfloor to installing baseboard and shoe molding. Just follow the links in the steps below, and don’t worry – no spam here. This is just straight-up content!
We hope you enjoy the series as much as we enjoyed publishing it! We also hope it’s helpful to you in your project. Before we get started though, just a reminder that the content is provided without warranty, and as with everything on our site, use this information at your own risk. We always take care in describing the steps and precautions for a job–and hardwood is a relatively safe subject–but there is always the possibility we’ll omit something important.
Finally, this article and the individual tutorials allow comments. Please feel free to weigh in with your own experience or ideas to make the content even better!
Please also feel free to share this on your own blog or web site if you find it helpful.
Steps to Install a Hardwood Floor
(hover over the links to learn more about the article)
Step 1 : Planning Your Floor
Consider what subfloor material you have (plywood or OSB) and its width, which may influence the direction you choose to lay the hardwoods in the room – either perpendicular or parallel to the joist substructure. Note: for concrete slab installation, engineered lumber is a better choice than solid hardwoods. Hardwood installations are most stable when they are installed perpendicular to the joists; but if your subfloor is sufficient, a parallel installation is acceptable.
Step 2: Preparing the Subfloor
Ensure the subfloor is sufficiently level for installation–there should be no rises and falls more than 3/16 over a 6 foot span. There are several ways to level an uneven subfloor for hardwoods.
For systemic problems, a good alternative to complete replacement is leveling the plywood or OSB subfloor using asphalt shingles. This method relies on shingles and an additional layer of plywood to get uniformity across the floor.
If a subfloor is high in a single or few locations, you can pull the subfloor up and plane the crowning joist to level the floor. If a subfloor is low in a single spot, you can pull the subfloor up and shim the floor, using a similar approach. If you decide to plane a joist, remember that this could have an affect on the structural integrity of the floor and it is important to get the opinion of a structural engineer. In any case, reattach the subfloor with screws and construction adhesive.
Step 3: Acclimate the Wood
With the subfloor sufficiently leveled, acclimate the hardwoods in the space where they will be installed. Leave the hardwoods in this location for 7-10 days. Make sure not to stack the boxes, and run the A/C or heat normally. The best time to install hardwoods is the Spring and Fall when the humidity and temperatures are at yearly averages, but Summer and Winter installations are possible with the proper precautions. Never store the hardwoods where they can get wet.
Step 4: Laying the First Row
When the hardwoods have been properly acclimated, it’s time to lay the first few hardwood boards. The first board in an installation sets the tone for the remainder of the installation. Take time and do it carefully. That article covers every step precisely.
If installed properly, the rest of the floor will practically lay itself. If installed unevenly, gaps will develop as you lay subsequent boards and you will be frustrated with the result. It is here that the technique known as blind nailing is first used.
Step 5: Laying Hardwoods in the Field
Continue laying hardwoods throughout the floor. While the bulk of a hardwood installation is tedious but uncomplicated, there are a few areas that can be challenging, and we have articles to cover these situations:
- (working around vents) Most modern homes have at least a few HVAC vents located on the floor. Laying hardwood around vents is simple, involving only a few measurements and cuts with a jigsaw.
- (working through doors) When maneuvering through an installation, you will likely have times where the hardwoods go through a door. When this happens, you should cut the door trim and stops just high enough to rest at the new floor level.
- (working around walls and obstacles) When laying hardwoods around a wall or when going around an object, you may have to start a new first board against the back side of a wall. When this happens, you should follow all the steps involved in laying the first board.
- (working around a fireplace) When laying hardwoods against a fireplace hearth, there are a few options for the transition. We recommend against using any type of shoe molding or quarter round.
Step 6: Laying the Last Board
When you get to the last few boards of the hardwood installation, you will need to blind nail and then face nail the wood because the hardwood flooring stapler or nailer will not fit (article coming soon).
Step 7: Flooring Transitions
After the floor is laid, you’ll likely need to transition to adjacent rooms and flooring surfaces, or install stair nosing. We discuss the proper place to transition in a doorway in our article on working through adjacent rooms. (other articles coming soon).
Step 8: Trim, Baseboard, and Shoe Molding
Install baseboard and shoe molding around the perimeter of the floor to ‘frame out’ the room. This involves scarf joints, inside corners (which can be cope cut), and outside corners. Quarter round can be an acceptable alternative to shoe molding if you have large gaps.
In fancier designs, three or more baseboard components are used, but in the typical installation only two (base and shoe) are installed. There are been a lot of discussion on our site on whether shoe molding and quarter round should be stained to match the floor or painted/stained to match the baseboard. If you are installing an exotic hardwood, you’ll find that the trim components are expensive. One alternative is to stain pine quarter round or shoe molding to closely match the floor.
If you’re laying next to kitchen cabinets, you should pick a shoe molding that matches the cabinets as opposed to the floor.
Tools to Install a Hardwood Floors
For a job this large, we were happy to have DuoFast sponsor the primary tools, providing their DuoFast Floormaster 200-S Hardwood Stapler for the bulk of the floor. In our 1100 square foot installation we fired nearly 3000 staples, or an average of just under 3 per square foot. The Floormaster 200-S performed flawlessly, with no jams.
DuoFast also provided their new DuoFast Floormaster 250BN finish nailer for the first and last boards and to facilitate molding installation. Both of these tools performed very well across our floor and we’d highly recommend them to folks installing flooring in their own home.
Where to Purchase Hardwood Floors
The flooring used in this installation is Lumber Liquidators’ Bellawood Brazilian Walnut Flooring. Bellawood is an excellent product sealed in many layers of aluminum oxide, the best surface coating for hardwood flooring. Aluminum oxide is far superior to polyurethane; it has better scratch resistance and does not fade or yellow over time. If you haven’t purchased your flooring yet, we highly recommend Lumber Liquidators online web site. Their site features really good deals and they can ship the product directly to your front door.
Hardwood flooring is offered by several other big box retailers and can be a significant investment. If you don’t choose Lumber Liquidators for your purchase, consider Lowes. We’ve written about a free Lowes Coupon that can save you 10% off a major purchase like hardwoods.
What do you think? As with all our articles on this site, help us make this better by adding your own suggestions and thoughts!
| | January 19, 2012 Filed in: Flooring, Flooring, Project Guides | Related Tags: hardwoods
Comments & Conversation on this Article...
41 Responses to How to Install Hardwood Flooring (Complete Instructions)
August 5th, 2010 8:12 pm
I think you have a typo. You said, “The best time to install hardwoods is the Spring and Summer when the humidity and temperatures are at yearly averages, but Summer and Winter installations are possible with the proper precautions.” I think you probably meant Spring and Fall, not Spring and Summer. Thanks for the great website!
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September 27th, 2010 10:50 pm
I am installed per-finished h/w floor on the 1st floor. I have a sunken Living Room. It needs a bullnose from DR to LR. when installing HW in the DR, should I base everything on the bullnose? Meaning, lay everything so that everything aligns with the bullnose even that means trimming the 1st row so everything will line up correctly. Hope this make sense.
A quick response is apprecaited since I am ready to begin installation.
Thanks in advance.
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September 28th, 2010 12:36 am
David, good question. Simple answer is yes, you should base it on the bullnose if you don’t want to make rip and route cuts on the last piece. Whenever I can start a floor at that point, that’s what I do.
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October 31st, 2010 2:51 pm
Fantastic post. As solid oak we have been writing about all things hardwood, tips and some trivia too. Will def return and read what you are up to next.
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November 18th, 2010 12:24 pm
I have a room with baseboard down but no flooring or quarter-round. Must I remove the baseboard to lay a 6-inch pine tongue /grove floor (new)?
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December 8th, 2010 5:11 pm
Thanks for a thorough guide. I’ll still probably hire a professional, but it’s good to know what goes into it.
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December 21st, 2010 7:22 pm
Great article. If you can’t follow this, then you should definitely hire a professional. Either way, great information. Thanks.
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February 8th, 2011 1:56 pm
When should/shouldn’t you glue? Does it matter how wide the board is or the nail guage?
Also, do you have any tips on covering stairs with hardwood? Would you suggest the average DIY’er try covering stairs?
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February 9th, 2011 9:57 am
MD – Generally speaking, I don’t like glued-down floors. They are much harder and messier to remove and more difficult to install than stapled floors. However, these floors tend to be installed over a flat slab. You would use engineered wood as opposed to solid wood when gluing because it is dimensionally much more stable. You also glue down treads when building stairs, and you can use glue in some situations where a finish nailer wouldn’t reach.
I generally advise against DIYers doing stairs. They are complicated to get them looking perfect. One of our sister blogs, Centsational Girl, has a good tutorial on hardwood stairs. http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2010/10/the-risers-and-the-treads/
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February 18th, 2011 9:18 pm
This is one thing I couldn’t do correctly, my study room project become a horror experience.
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April 1st, 2011 5:11 pm
Hello, I have a problem. A water line broke in my house and the Insurance is paying for the floor to be replaced. The problem is that my flooring is enginered and 3/8″ thick. It is glued onto a subfloor and below that are the enginered trusts. I have one contractor that wants to remove the wet wood. Then staple and glue the new floor to the old flooring. His issue is that ripping up the old floors will damage the sub-floor and possibly the trusts. causing bigger problems. Any thoughts….
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April 3rd, 2011 9:10 am
Dennis, I doubt that ripping up the floor will cause substantial damage to the subfloor, and I’d seriously doubt damage to the underlying trusses…. I wouldn’t rule out subfloor damage as a potential problem, though. Wouldn’t your insurance be forced to pay for a subfloor replacement if they’ve already agreed to replace the floor and the issue runs deeper than the surface floor?
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April 10th, 2011 9:32 am
Great article – we are having harwood installed this week and even though we have hired a contractor to do it reading this will allow me to understand and follow what they are doing.
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April 28th, 2011 6:15 pm
I have a sunken bedroom where we are having hardwood floor installed, my question is: How do I run the wood floor along the wall of the sunken bedroom.
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May 2nd, 2011 10:29 pm
Teresa, take a look at the section on leveling a subfloor, and especially the method for using asphalt shingles. You may be able to run shingles close to the wall to get it level. Feel free to ask some more questions on that page.
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May 4th, 2011 12:44 pm
I have a question. What is the best wood floor material that does not stain when you spill water on it? That is really my problem on my old wood floor.
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May 8th, 2011 10:06 am
I am preparing to install 3/4″ pre-finished red oak over a plywood subfloor. Is it advisable to install some type of expansion joint since the flooring runs from one end of the house to the other, approximately 80′? Also I have three rooms that are over 25′ wide.
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June 28th, 2011 9:53 am
I am installing pre-finished h/w floors in our DR and LR. The LR is stepped down about 8 inches from the DR. I’m using a bullnose, which is 12 1/2 ft long, on the edge of the DR floor. How do I transition the baseboard and concave shoe molding from the DR down to the LR and going around the bullnose.
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Fred Reply:
June 30th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Greg, this really depends on the room itself. Can you send me a picture at fred@oneprojectcloser.com and I’ll take a look?
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July 21st, 2011 9:46 am
I just got done installing a maple floor in our office and I referred to the information in this article extensively. Thanks for a thorough, well documented tutorial – it made my job much easier!
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Fred Reply:
July 29th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Music to our ears! Thanks so much for the positive feedback!
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September 2nd, 2011 10:30 am
I was wondering if anyone has ever installed wood flooring in a kitchen over 6″ quarry tile? any help or direction would been great.
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September 17th, 2011 10:54 pm
I would have to think that #6 and #7 are the most important parts of the floor. Most anyone can get the floor down and make it look nice. However, to finish it off nice and make it look professional is another thing. It’s not rocket science but a little planning a few feet before the end is super important. Looks like you guys did a fantastic job on this one. Nice work!
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October 20th, 2011 8:44 pm
Great information Fred and what a beautiful floor you installed. Very professional looking too. I didn’t see where you mention the paper that’s placed over the sub floor. The pink stuff. We had some tar paper left over from another project so instead of discarding it we used it.
My hubby started with the upstairs hallway which has right angle turn. We both agreed it would look best if the boards ran the length of the hall in both sections so I suggested making the corners like a log cabin quilt. We also did it around the very edge of the hearth in the Gentleman’s Parlor and as a large boarder in the Ladies Parlor. We laid the boards in the Library at a 45 degree angle.
Oh and “we” meaning I was just the planner and gofer, hubby did the actual installation.
Not sure this link with work, but here’s some pictures I have of our floors during and just after they were installed.
Our Floors
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Fred Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
I don’t know why its taking me so long to reply to this one, but your floors look great. I love that log-cabin design in the corner – its something we considered on our first floor until I got intimidates with the work. I was thinking about running a perimeter around the whole floor and then laying the wood inside of it… never got there, just seemed too hard!
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JustME Reply:
December 12th, 2011 at 12:26 am
Hey Fred. Glad you liked the floors. My hubby is amazing when it comes to trying new things since we started to build our home. He said the log cabin corners were quite easy. However he was intimidated at that thought of making bookcases for our library. Finally I took him into our walk in closet and said, you did this according to my drawings and it’s basically the same concept a bookcase would be. The bookcases are coming long beautifully.
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December 20th, 2011 10:10 pm
Love this post. In our new home, I am trying to decided whether to keep the carpet around or not. Have you ever left one particular room carpeted and done the rest of the floor? or does it make more sense just to do wood throughout and use a huge rug or something?
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Fred Reply:
December 24th, 2011 at 8:49 am
Yep, we’ve done that very thing in other homes, or left an area with hardwood and and area with tile. There’s really no “Rule” per se, but here’s something to think about: A single flooring surface across an entire level of a house makes the rooms feel much, much bigger, because the natural boundaries between the rooms is removed. So, when you stand in the dining room, it looks like it extends to the kitchen, or family room, etc., because there is no division. Likewise, when you stand in the kitchen, it looks like it extends into all the adjacent rooms. That’s why open floor plans have become so popular–because they make the same square footage home feel bigger than if it were divided (either by walls, or paint colors, or flooring surfaces).
We’ve become big fans of the hardwood-and-rugs motif for our home. If we want to have a cozy area, we simply get a thick rug and put it in that room!
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January 19th, 2012 9:35 am
Overall, fantastic guide. I have about 6 tabs open right now going through the details of all the steps. At some point in the next few years the wifey and I are gutting the kitchen, taking out a wall or two, and then hardwood throughout the kitchen, dining, living room, and stairs. I’ll be going over the guide again then.
What’s a kerf joint? You mentioned it in Step 8. I’ve used scarf joints when doing long trim runs but not sure what a kerf joint is.
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Joe Reply:
January 19th, 2012 at 11:48 am
I am not sure, I think they meant scarf joint (they called it a simple joint in the tutorial).
When you said kerf joint I was thinking about the double grove & spline joints you need sometimes to switch directions… but thats not it either.
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jeff_williams Reply:
January 19th, 2012 at 11:58 am
Online search yields that some call a mitered spline joint a kerf joint. A spline fits in the kerf left by the table saw or router. One of my future projects is making sled for the TS to do both straight splines and dovetail splines for decorative boxes.
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Joe Reply:
January 20th, 2012 at 9:37 am
I found those too, looks like a good way to make a miter joint stronger (like a poor mans biscuit joiner).
Fred Reply:
January 19th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
It should have been “Scarf” – My mistake. And I knew about that one too and for some reason never fixed it. It feels like maybe this is an older version of the post, but that could just be my old age showing through
A Kerf joint does exist, as you point out Jeff, but it isn’t this joint.
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January 19th, 2012 11:50 am
I will reiterate the comment someone made above about spring/fall (you said spring/summer in the article).
Also, the suggestion of cutting baseboard a little long applies all the time, the compression at the ends is good and keeps everything tight.
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Fred Reply:
January 19th, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Joe – two good tips. I fixed the post and I thought I had *already* fixed it a long time ago (on the Summer/Spring thing).
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January 20th, 2012 11:04 am
someday I’m gonna read through this & all the comments and take on this type of project for our condo, because everyone has quoted us $6000+ to do it.
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January 22nd, 2012 12:12 am
Fred,
As others have said, thank you for taking the time to post your flooring adventure and respond to the many questions. The timing for stumbling upon your website was quite fortuitous. I have 3/4″ x 3 1/4″ Brazilian Walnut on order, but am really stuck on some of the basic points before installation even begins.
I am unsure whether to go with staples or cleats. Many people warn against staples with the hard exotics and the 15 1/2 gauge with the Duo-Fast is a concern. If I go with cleats, it looks like I am limited to 1 3/4″ with the recommended 18 gauge cleats. I would like to use 2″ since I intend to have 1/4″ cork underlayment to build up the floor to existing trim, molding, and adjoining floors. I have 3/4″ OSB as a sub-floor and would like as secure a floor as I can get.
Did you have many split boards or tongues? Did you use 2″ staples? Any other thoughts on the nailers/staplers?
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Fred Reply:
January 22nd, 2012 at 1:10 am
Shawn, I HIGHLY recommend glue-tipped staples, just like we used for this floor. We had tongue splits maybe 2-3% of the time, but virtually NONE of those splits prevented the next board from being fastened. We literally fired about 3,000 staples into our floor and it is VERY tight. The floor does not squeak nor move. I am very happy with the choice. The staples give you two fasten points for every drive. The glue heats up with friction on the drive and the lock is VERY tight.
Anyhow, it’s not that I’m an apologist for Duo-Fast or their staples. They provided those for free and I’d tell you if they sucked. But they didn’t, and I’m still very happy with the floor.
Word to the wise, though: Be sure to fully acclimate your floor. We have some gaps… I’m currently considering a whole-house humidifier to try to even out the humidity throughout the year. The floors still look great, I just wish they were perfectly tight.
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January 31st, 2012 9:02 am
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February 7th, 2012 12:12 am
Our older oak hardwood floors have notable gaps where some of the end pieces come together. Are there any simple ways to improve the looks?
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February 9th, 2012 5:02 pm
Thank you for posting these detailed instructions-I’m pinning them and considering trying to install myself-but I’m a little nervous!
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