Looking at the picture below my goal is to start at the stair nose and work my way back through the bedroom. I have an area that can’t be finished yet so here are my questions.

Question 1: I want to partially tear out the carpet in the bedroom on the left but I'm not sure how to leave the wood so that I can finish it up at a later date. I don't want to put in a threshold at the door and want to make it continuous. How do I do this without making it look choppy at the door entrance?

Question 2: The stair nose has a groove for the tongue. How do you work to the stair nose and get the right gap so you don't have to cut the piece next to the nose? Do you face nail/glue the stair nose then put the 2nd strip in the groove and then flip the following strip and run the other way so that I can continue on though the other rooms.

I have read numerous times in here that you should always start at the stair nose and work you way back but how you can do this without flipping/cutting the tongue off and then continuing on? One of my options is to measure and start at the doorway directly across from the nose. Go from the doorway to the nose and then flip the next piece at the doorway and continue on the other direction into the bedroom. I want this to look as professional as possible.

I hope this made sense…if not, I’ll try to clarify.

Spline/slip tongue the board going next to the stairnose.

In that room, move everything over to one side of the room and run the wood on through. Put a sacraficial boards from your cull pile where you stop so the edge doesn't get damaged, until you can finish the room.

How do I do this exactly? Hate to be a noob but I am.

Would my best bet on the part finish room be to bite the bullet and just go ahead and do it now or should I wait until after I remove all the drywall and insulation. I'm going to gut that room and was afraid to damage the floor later on. If I can safely cover the floor I would rather do that and complete the floor now. I kind of hate the idea of running the boards’ wild and finishing it later (next summer).

A couple more noob questions. What is the difference between red rosin paper and 15# roofing felt? Do I need a 6 mill moisture barrier on the second story on a bi-level house. I can't see a reason for it but maybe there is. I'm using BR-111 Triangulo Tiete Chestnut (3/8 engineered)


EDIT: I had a brain fart and now I understand what you meant by putting the stuff on one side, running it through and having the last board as a sacrifice. I almost think I'm better of just doing the whole thing now and protecting it from construction later.

Thoughts and suggestions welcomed.

To make the spline, measure the tongue and double the width. Take a scrap piece of wood (or two) from the floor and with a table saw cut a piece out of it that size. Glue it with a good wood glue into both grooves, or glue it into one side to give yourself a tongue to slide into the other groove.

The experts will chime in here, I hope, to give any corrections, but I'm quite sure this is the way it's done: it's the way I'm going to be doing it here shortly (unless corrected). I'm betting you'd put a small amount of glue on both sides of the spline, as the nosing can use the extra support.

Thanks on the spline answer.



Could someone answer theses last two questions please?

1) Red rosin or 15# felt paper? Is one better then the other?

2) Should I put a moisture barrier between the floors even though the floor below is living space?

1. did you understand why floorguy stated that?

2. it matters not what paper is used.

3. the paper will act as a barrier as well.

4. are the lines in your drawing the direction the flooring is going to be laid?

We encounter this exact situation sometimes - customer wants to do hall & one room now, the other room later as they can afford it.
What we do is use short boards in the doorway area & a temp transition strip between rooms. That way we can easily pull them out and finger in longer boards when they're ready to run the wood into the next room. You don't have anything jutting into the next room that way, and there's little waste of wood.

Agreed, blind nailing those boards with a finish nailer will make the replacement job easier.

Yes that is the direction.



That makes sense to me. Honestly I think I'm going to just finish it off all the way within a week after doing the rest. I could finger in some boards but it would leave a lot of joints in the same area and I don't want that. I'm very anal so to leave it half done would bother me too much.

I will post some pics when I'm done. Thanks for the help guys!!!