Hi All,

I am reaching out because I am getting so much conflicting information online... Please share your wisdom!

I have an elevated log cabin with solid wood floors in the living room, but carpet in two small bedrooms (10x12 each). The carpets just a mess to maintain, so I want to put unfinished solid pine 6 or 8” wide flooring.

I have the following questions:
1. Can I just put down 12’ long boards leaving .25” on the sides for expansion? Or do I have to stagger? I am not sure what the benefit or staggering would be, other than looks. The room is so small that I would rather just put full length.

2. I was planning to face nail by hand, two nails every 4’. Is that a problem?

3. If face nailing by hand, what are the best nails to use (brand, type, length, thickness)? I have plywood subfloor.

4. I will use Aquabar-B or Roberts Silicone Vapor Sheild underlayment. Is one better than the other? My wife is pregnant, so I don’t want any fumes or off-gasing... The floor gets cold, so temperature control is very important.

5. Am I missing anything? Any glaring mistakes in my plan?


Thank you so much!!!
K.

The full length boards will be the most desirable. This method will also be the strongest, depending on your sub-floor and framing. Quarter inch should be good for expansion with pine.
You should nail into the tongue every 12 inches minimum and if only blind nailed then within 3 inches of the ends. Any surface nailing would be for decoration or to create a pattern for your architectural design. Sometimes the butt-joints are face-nailed to prevent splitting near the ends if you needed to nail into a joist without any sub-floor. If you go with full length boards you will not have any butt-joints.
I would use 2" powercleats with the hammer that goes with it, or 2 inch staples with pneumatic gun and hammer. If you are hand nailing, then use 8d finish nails or cement coated casing nails, if you can get them. These nails have a blunt tip to prevent splitting as the nail punches through the wood instead of spreading instead of spreading the fibers apart with a sharp nail.
Aqua Bar paper has wax between layers of craft paper so it won't smell under the floor and comes in rolls of 500 square feet so you will not have too much left over
as you will be overlapping some for each row of paper..

Thank you!
I do plan to face nail them by hand, so just need to pick the right nail size and type and nailing schedule...

If you are using boards instead of flooring you ought to nail every 12-16 inches along the board. If you are nailing 2 nails every 16 inches, each nail within 3/4 inch of the edge of the boards, this should be good. With wider boards, 6-8 inch width, I would also nail in the center of each pair of top-nails on the edge.
8d nails are recommended for 3/4" flooring. The only casing nails that I saw on the internet were hot dipped casing nails, which are hard to drive into seasoned wood, which you should be using, so you may want to drill a pilot hole just sightly smaller than the nail shank through the flooring, but not into the sub-floor, or floor joists before you try to drive the nails. Of course you will set the nails and fill the nail holes before you start sanding.