Well this weeks project:








Customer wanted hardwood in her upstairs hallway, But had an existing handrail/banaster in oak, stained dark walnut. Along with the 19 stairs down to the first floor.
Instead of installing and sanding a new floor to match, the descion was made to do something to blen it with the railing.

The customer and I came up with a simple solution that looks very clean.

We decided to install a 4 inch american walnut border throughout the entire hallway (337sq ft). We chose to double the walnut boards at all of the doorways leading into other rooms, install walnut nosings, and in ordere to keep it cleaner looking we did not carry the border into the closets, instead we kept the same doubled walnut board theme, so even with the doors closed there is one full walnut board exposed.

The field was laid first, using Selecte & Better 3 1/4 red oak on a 45 degree angle. After the feild was all ladi out, we cut the entire floor back 4 inches from the baseboards using a fesstool saw, routerto route grooves, and fien tool for corner cuts.
The entire floor was trowel glued and stapled using bosticks best.
I didnt feel the glue was nessicary, But I had previously installed 1600 ft in a 3,4,5 pattern in the downstairs, where we had to glue because of the 4 & 5 inch boards for this customer. She has been so pleased with the lack of movement and squeks (compared to her prior experinces with hardwoods) that she wanted the upstairs glued also.

The floor was sanded with an old 100 grit belt (just to semi flatten it out) across the grain/on opposing 45 degree angle. Then edged with 60 grit, trio'd with 60 grit. Filled a quick pass with the 60 on the trio to remove the filler. Then final edged using 100 grit, and trio'd with 100 grit.
Finished it off with a 100 grit screen, a coat of bona puritan pine stain, and 3 coats of traffic satin. All dustless.

Was 1.5 days to install, and one full day of sanding. (mostly just standing looking at the trio, as it did most of the work).
The whole hallway there was one section (aprox 6x6) that I was able to use the hummel on.

This job truley made me appreciate my trio and fien tool that much more.

Sorry for the low quality pictures, I have misplaced my digital camera, and while my phone is a great computer...It is not the best camera.
The floor is buffed and ready for final coat in the pictures. I didnt remember to take pictures until I was about to tack the floor

I like that, very good ideas.

Thanks I was concerned about the bumping out around the two door casings (with no doors)

After a few drawings, and CAD programs I felt much better about it.

Great solution! Looks time consuming as well. I hope you got paid enough for your efforts. Sometimes with me, the fancier the floor, the less I make because it takes so much longer than your average floor. And the customers will only pay so much. Plus it's still hard for me to accurately judge the labor time on a one-of-a-kind custom floor.

I usually can look at the job in sections in the estimate. I can look and say okay well its going to take me 8 hrs to install the feild, 2 hours to do the cutbacks and routing. ect ect. I am usually fairly close, average custom job runs 2-6 hours over what I think it should when I estimate it. So over the years I have learned to tack on a 1/2-full day of labor for the customers time frame. Then if I finish a little ahead of scheduale I can get a jump on sanding etc.
But I dont bid the jobs price wise on that. I keep very detailed records of virtually all my jobs, so I know on average how long things will take. (even filling the floor)

I tend to make less money doing the custom jobs, but I would rather install a hallway like that for 2 days or so, then nail 800 sq feet straight. Custom floors get more people talking, which creates more work for me at least.

Plus staight floors are boring lol

Thanks for sharing your tips on bidding custom floors. I utilize some of those, like tacking on extra labor time due to unknowns. I should keep better records of how long different tasks take me. I don't.

Both floors look good guys ..

Beautiful workmanship.
One question I have though, from a past similar install we did.
One of the photos, showing what appears to be a rear staircase and powder room, your field does not show any end joints.
I did the same sort of thing and was reamed a new... by the customer. She felt it didnt match the remainder of the floor. Had to cut out a few boards to make joints, dang it. I thought it looked great that way, but in defence of the client the floor did connect to three large rooms of hardwood that had lots of joints, so perhaps she was right.
Anyway, nice job! By the way, I price these sort of jobs by figuring out how much it could possibly cost, then I double it, lol.

I really try to avoid whole peice sections especially in the last triangles they dont match, but some things always get past you no matter how hard you try, Im pretty sure I was so excited to be able to use the staple gun again I just got over zealous lol,