How To: Install a tongue and groove floor

There are fewer things finer in a home than a hardwood flooring. For the do-it-yourselfer, however, it can be a fun, yet daunting task. Installing a hardwood floor can best be described as a combination of rough and fine carpentry. Pounding the nails home and bending warped flooring to fit is certainly rough work. However, it is detailed as well, because even small mistakes will show.

There are many types of hardwood flooring, but this tutorial will only cover solid tongue and groove flooring that is either prefinished or finished in place. Other types of wood flooring that are glued or clipped in place or made from different layers of wood require different kinds of installation procedures and will not be covered here.

Prefinished tongue and groove flooring is just like unfinished flooring except that it comes already finished and often has a slight bevel on the surface edges. The bevel is there because often when installing a floor the top surfaces from one piece to the next will vary in height because of inconsistencies in the sub floor and in the flooring itself. If the bevels were not there the edges might splinter or wear badly. Unfinished flooring does not have this problem because inconsistencies in height are sanded out during the finishing process. However, this same finishing process can be viewed as a disadvantage because it can take several days to complete and be very messy. For complete, step-by-step instructions for this DIY project, watch this friendly and straightforward video tutorial.