How to lay wooden floors

There are so many different types of wood out there that all create different effects and beautiful wood floors. Once you've chosen what sort of wood you're going to go for, use our guide to see how to cut and lay your new wooden floor.

Level of difficulty

Level 3: Advanced

What you need

  • Tape measure
  • Wood flooring
  • Hammer
  • Lost-head nails
  • Wrench
  • Saw

The steps to follow

1. Acclimatise the floorboards in the room where you will lay the wood floor for at least 48 hours. This will adjust the floorboards to the room temperature and conditions.
2. Remove the floorboards.
3. Measure the width or the length of the room, whichever is at right angles to the joists.
4. Using the measurements you’ve just acquired, cut your boards with a saw.
5. Lay the first board with its grooved edge away from the wall, leaving a space no wider than 9 mm (3/8 in).
6. Continue laying four to six boards at a time, parallel to the wall.
7. Use a floor clamp to hold them in place and close the edge joints. You can either hire floor clamps or use wedges to clamp the boards.

I. Clamping boards with wedges:
i. Cut 400 mm (1 ft 4 in) wedges from off-cuts of board.
ii. Nail a floorboard less than a board’s width away from the first floorboard.
iii. Insert a pair of wedges in the gap and tap the wedges towards each other with two hammers.

8. Make sure that each joint is tight and in place.
9. Nail the clamped floorboards with lost-head nails.

Note:
The length of these nails should be twice as long as the thickness of the board.
Plan to nail them in pairs, 25 mm (1 in) from the edge of the board and centred on the joists. Skew nails about 2 mm (1/16 in) below the surface.

10. Remove the wedges and repeat the procedure until you've reached the end.
11. Cut the edges of the last board to fit.

I. If you cannot slide the groove onto the tongue, cut away the bottom section of the grooved edge so that it will drop into place.
II. You can also cut the bottom section of the grooved edge so that it can drop into place.

12. When you're finished laying your wood floor, you're ready to begin sanding.
 

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