As shown below, the timber boards were installed in a different direction to the hardwood. They apply the glue on the hardwood first, then nail the board on each of the hardwood.
This one taken from different angle, you can see the cutting machine in the lower corner and all the boards to be installed scattered all over the places.
Another one from different angle looking into the sliding door for alfresco area. I forgot to mention that, same as upstairs, they also have to cut the bottom of all architraves from all downstairs doors as well. For upstairs it's about 20mm and downstairs is about 40mm due to the extra hardwood height.
Late afternoon the front area also completed.
Next morning the work for the front bay windows area started. You might notice the hardwoods are quite clean, that's because I swept and vacuumed the whole area in the previous night.
The other side of the front living area.
After another one and a half days work, the whole ground floor area all completed. Guess what's left? Yes, the stairs...
While they started downstairs, I started cleaning all the glues and dirt upstairs with this bottle of "mineral turpentine". It's a slow and painful process. Yes, I know that this should be their job, but as we all know, only the owner will do a proper cleaning job, so:
- Price for a bottle of mineral turpentine - $5
- Daily saving of cleaning cost - $100
- Enjoying your new timber floor after cleaning- priceless
Some of the glues were so thick and hard to remove, it's very difficult to rub them off with the mineral turpentine. The team then showed me a faster method: by using this little blade, I can scrap off a huge portion of the glue and that indeed saved lots of effort.
The installation of the stairs actually didn't start until a few days later because the boss started another job right away when they finished our ground floor. My understanding is, due to the limited access/space, stairs can only be done by a single person and it's extremely slow. So I think the boss tried to keep his team busy by finishing most of the work in the other job first, then leave the stairs work for both sites last. This way he can keep his team fully occupied.
As shown below, the quality is quite nice (after a few hours of cleaning by us).
So, finally, after 2 weeks of hard work, plus a few days of cleaning, we got all the non-wet area covered in nice and shining timber. This is the front door area.
This is the front bay windows area.
The other side of front living area. Try compare it with the last photo from the previous post when it was full of hardwood and dust, huge difference!
The meals area.
The family/back bay windows area.
Our landscaping also progressed a lot in the past week and I will try to post something soon.
7 comments:
just want to ask who installed the beautiful timber floor for you
many thanks
Hi David,
Our timber floor was installed by a quite experienced guy recommended by the supplier.
Unfortunately, when we gave his details to one of our neighbours who were doing renovation last month, we were told his mobile was disconnected. Checked with supplier and was told he has moved overseas and no longer in the business.
Cheers
Allen
Can I ask you who your timber supplier is? We are going to build Allcastle Princeton (similar to the one you built), we were told we are better off to select their maple timber staircase ($2950 extra), is it worth it? I noticed you had to cut off “bullnose”, if it is ok, Can I ask how much it cost to have timber floor installed in your house
Many thanks
Hi David,
It's "Topdeck Flooring", they are in Churchill St, Silverwater.
Won't suggest to go with the builder as in the end they have to subcontract out to someone else anyway, and add 25% profit margin on top...
Suggest to first decide on the type of material first, then ask as many questions as you can think of about how are they going to install the floor board, specially on stairs, skirt board handling, how to join with kitchen/wet area, ...etc.
Might also want to ask for a few references or visit a few sites which they installed, it would be best if you can get one that they are currently working on.
We visited quite a lot of suppliers before deciding on this one.
Hope this helps.
Allan
I visited the timber company today, I am told kempas timber has a tendency to split and crack on the ends, what is your experience with your timber boards? do you have any split/crack problems?
many thanks
Not many, only a few. If you leave the installer to grab whatever floor board that's available, there's no control at all. So due to fussy wife, we actually painfully open the boxes, remove those that doesn't "look good" in colour, only use them in upstair bedrooms, and also put those with cracks in separate pile.
Allan
Did you pay with fixed price with percentage of wastage? or pay as you go? are your splits/crack mainly downstairs or upstairs? Did the timber company provide 10 year warranty? If yes, how did they fix the split problem?
Many thanks
Post a Comment