Hi guys,

New to the forum. I'm in the middle of full home reno. I'm doing panelled wainscot throughout the house along with new flooring. Had a few questions about the flooring install. For background, I do woodworking and but haven't done a floor like this before.

We're using 3.25 x 3/4 quarter sawn T&G Douglas fur. I'm installing with a chevron pattern (hungarian point) at 45˙. Boards will be about 21.25" long once cut (15" per side, 30" wide for a full chevron). Was going to use 3 2" cleats per board.

Had 2 questions for you (tried searching but couldn't find anything):

1. With the mitred ends, would you do a butt joint, or router/spline them? Each mitre will be about 4.5 inches. I'm thinking a spline would be best, to stop any squeaks or noises. But I wanted to check as it will add a good amount of time to the job.

2. The boards come in lengths from 3-6 feet. So I'll be cutting everything. Initially I was going to mitre one end, rough cut to length leaving a little extra, install, then run my track saw down the floor after every row. Giving me a nice straight edge, along with stopping any cumulative error. But in thinking about the splines, I'm wondering if I would better off to precut everything to final size, and router before install, rather than doing in place. I can see pros/cons to each approach so I was curious to get some professional opinions.

Happy to share pics and the job progresses.

Many thanks,
Nick.

You can make the grooves for the ends of the slats all at once after you straight-line the pattern. There is a company that makes the router bit with a bearing on top so you just make a quick pass to get it all done. The next row will need to be routed before its laid, so every other run will be easy.
Normally the router sits on the bottom of the boards so all the groves done individually are in line when the boards sit on the sub-floor. To make the long run with the router more accurate I suggest using an edger to sand the over-wood off before making the pass along the straight-line. If you glue the pieces near the wall where the router will not fir you will be fine. I would still glue the join with sub-floor adhesive along with the T&G where the loose tongue meets the long groove.
Nice plan!

Thanks for sharing. I hadn't considered that tongue would be routered from the bottom, and with my idea the groove would be routered from the top. I can see now how important it would be to make everything extremely flat beforehand. Thanks for the heads up on the top bearing bit.

Sounds like cutting the second edge on the floor is better way to go, as opposed to precutting everything.

Makes sense with glueing the flooring in the corners. I'll look into adhesives, but guessing PL400 is a good bet.

In terms of the order for paint and floor finishing:

I was going to install/sand entire floor before I do any of the millwork. I thought it would be easier that way, rather than trying to install/sand around the lower wainscot rail and door casings.

The millwork will be painted white, along with the walls to give the house a french look.

In terms of the order:

Would you, install/sand the floor then:
1. Finish the floor before starting the millwork. Maybe give it 3-5 days (or more?) to start curing, then plasticover, then go onto the millwork and subsequent paint?
2. or plasticover the sanded floor, install the millwork, then paint, then pull the paper and finish the floor.

I imagine you have do option #1 on a job site, rather than come back some weeks later. But since I'm doing it myself I thought #2 might be nice. As then after both paint and floor finish are done, I could take a holiday and let the curing process start, without walking on it, or touching walls. But I'm now wondering if the humidity from the paint would mess with the unfinished floor? Thus making #2 not practical and necessitating #1.

Sorry if this seems like a newb question. Normally I'd always do #1. But I thought #2 might be a nice option because I can. I just don't know if really smart or really dumb.