Ha ha. No sweat here.

I wish I could find the moron that put down these OSB boards in the study. He must have been drunk. What a mess....

End rant.

According to Mike Holmes, 70% of the people in the building trades aren't good. OSB ain't necessarily bad although the installer may have been. When I bought my first brand new house I thought 'happy days'. Boy was I ever wrong.....I've been fixing the builders mistakes since day one.
Quick story... The builder who built my house also built around 15 more houses in our development. There is a local carpenter/painter/handyman whose has been working in our development practically full time for years taking care of the builder's mistakes and subpar work. I mentioned this to the handyman recently and he told me that a few years ago he sent a Christmas card to the builder and included a note thanking him for all the work opportunities. The builder did not know who the handyman was and asked about him around town. One of the people the builder asked passed this info back to the handyman. Handyman was laughing as he told me the story.

Funny story.

My OSB is fine; the problem is with the screws...80% did not hit the joist.

Luckily an easy fix.

Here's another question; I am still undecided if the floor will just flow from room to room or if I will use some transition boards between rooms. If I go with transitions, there's a couple of areas (Foyer that connects with study and dining room) where there would be transitions at both ends of the foyer. Is it a must to use tongue/grooves when butting into the room transitions? I figure the only way I could do this is by having a router...and I don't. It could be a good excuse to get one, but it would be a lot simpler if in one end I just cut the boards to length and butt them to the transition, without the tongue/grooves.

Thoughts? Can I get away without the tongue/grooves into one of the room transitions? Am I missing something here?

Thanks!!!

It's not a good idea to just butt the boards. If the boards aren't locked together they could possibly move, rub, and squeak when walked on. If you have no choice but to butt the boards you could face screw/nail them and plug or fill the holes. If you need a good reason to buy a router...this would be a good one. Room to room flow vs transitions between rooms is personal preference. One argument for transitions is that you can refinish one room and have a stopping point at the transition.....with room to room flow it will be difficult to refinish just one room. Also, transitions let to complete on room at a time and not have to demo and work on more than one room at a time.

Thanks, as always. I am 80% at using transitions. It will make the whole install a lot easier with 4 people living in the house. And I guess I'll never have a better excuse to buy a router

I should have also mentioned that you can cut slots and tongues too on a table saw. If you will be making the cuts on the end of a board you will need a tenoning jig or other support. The only downside to this is cutting long boards. Also, a dado blade would be necessary to make the cut in one pass.

Yes...I try to keep any table saw work to a minimum, and only simple rips. But thanks

OK. I'm just doing a little CYA in case the boss gets on your case when you BUY a router and your defense is that I made you do it.

Yeah, every forum I've joined costs me money. I will for sure blame you.

I'll shoulder the blame if you will let me use the router when you folks go on vacation.

So how has the job progressed, I'm at that planning stage and your question regarding transitions vs flow was the first question that I came up with.

As a follow up, when using the transition pieces at the doors and one room was finished, do you take measurements back to a starting wall in the second room and hope that everything lines up when you hit the doorway or do you start at the doorway, line up the boards and install in both directions for the second room?

Can you post a diagram....I'm having trouble visualizing what your layout looks like.

If I use the transitions at each door, and start in the den, when I begin the next room do I start laying wood at that common line working in both directions or would I measure back (up) to the wall and start laying there?