Flooring: 1st floor part 1 - landing

Apart from the bathrooms, all the flooring upstairs was going to be oak boards. Because we had installed underfloor heating, using solid oak was out of the question (it is prone to warping and cracking with temperature and moisture changes), so engineered oak boards would have to be installed instead.

Engineered oak is made up of a plywood base with just a thin layer of natural oak glued on top and is therefore much more resistant to heat fluctuations. We had been gathering samples of engineered oak boards for some time (these were just the best ones - we had a lot more!)
 
Not too sure about that lumpy old tabby sample at the front though.

After examining samples from many different suppliers, it had become apparent to us that there are a LOT of cowboys out there...

There was a world of difference between the quality of the engineered oak boards and many flooring suppliers would be deliberately vague about what they were selling. Commonly, they would try to pass off inferior 3-ply as multi-ply ("well, it is made of multiple layers, you see").

As the picture below shows, proper multi-ply is made up of 7 or 8 thin layers of wood (cross-grained for strengthening), while the 3-ply stuff was essentially just a block of softwood with 1 layer of ply on the bottom (being neither strong nor moisture-resistant, this would not be suitable for underfloor heating).

Suppliers would also claim that the top oak layer was say, 3mm thick, but then include a small print disclaimer about a 'tolerance' of +/- 2mm, so that some samples ended up with a piddly 1mm thick layer of oak. There were similar disclaimers about the colour of the boards too, with several samples looking rather too orange. It was a complete minefield and a quick glance at reviews at consumer websites like Trustpilot showed there were an awful lot of unhappy customers who had fallen foul of these places.

After several months trawling local stockists and online suppliers, it looked like we weren't going to find what we needed for the budget that we had. As ever though, being tenacious ultimately paid off; we stumbled across a very high quality board that was being sold off cheaply because it was the last of the stock. They were exactly what'd we'd been searching for; wide boards (220mm) with a thicker than usual (4mm) layer of oak and proper multi-ply backing.

It was a relief to finally get them delivered and stacked up ready for fitting.

Before we could lay the boards, we needed to prepare the dry screed floors. Because of general wear and tear throughout the build process, some areas of the screed had become uneven and would need levelling. The main bedroom was the worst and needed extensive sanding to flatten certain parts, which generated a lot of dust... Gahhh!

Once the dust had cleared, we primed the now-level screed using a specialist flooring product that was designed to bond the particles together and prevent any further crumbling.

In the landing, a section of screed had been cut away by the heating engineer in order to install an important cable that he had forgotten to do during the original installation. Double gahhh!

The floor has to be completely dry before laying down the oak boards. Screed retains moisture for months after being laid, so we used quick-drying, self-levelling compound to repair all the gaps in the dry screed.

More self-levelling compound was used to fill the cracks in the main bedroom.

Once all the self-levelling compound had dried, we applied a second coat of primer across the whole of the first floor.

Before we started fitting the boards, Alan created a scale drawing to work out the floorboard layout (dotted lines represented the width of each board). It took a lot of planning because we had to work out exactly where the boards would start and finish in each room. It was important to avoid having to fit thin slivers of board alongside a wall as this can look unsightly.

Also the fitting method we had chosen, dictated that the boards had to be installed in a certain sequence and direction - there was a lot to think about.





We decided to start in the landing, which was the centre of the first floor and work outwards into the main bedroom.

After cutting the boards to size, we tested out the layout by dry-fitting a couple of rows. Although engineered oak expands and contracts much less than solid oak, it still requires expansion gaps to be left around the perimeter of the rooms (especially as we were planning to lay a large unbroken area across several rooms) so we used packers to position the boards off the walls. These expansion gaps will be covered later with skirting board.  

Despite getting a bargain price, the engineered oak boards were still not cheap and since we'd never laid any before, it was really important to make sure we did not make any mistakes with the installation. 

There are number of different ways to install wood flooring and after much research and speaking at length to various technical advisers, we decided to both glue and screw down our boards. This would mean more work (and cost) than laying a simple 'floating' floor, but would definitely make the boards feel much more solid and eliminate any of those annoying creaks and squeaks. 

We applied specialist floorboard adhesive to the screed using a notched trowel, then pressed the first line of boards down into place. 

Next we screwed the boards down at regular intervals into the battens below. We used the 'secret-nailing' method, where nails (or in this case, thin tongue-tite screws) were driven through the tongue of the board at a 45 degree angle. That way, when the next row of boards is slotted in place, all the nails/screws are completely hidden. 

More flooring adhesive was laid down ready for the next line of boards...   

... which was glued and screwed as before. This was a 'belt and braces' approach; while the screws fixed the boards firmly to the battens, the adhesive bonded all the areas in between and also acted as a kind of 'liquid underlay', helping to fill any unevenness in the screed without inhibiting the heat from the underfloor pipes. This should make the whole floor feel solid, with no creaks or hollow spots anywhere.   

To get a really neat appearance, the floor boards should slot under the door liners. This meant we needed to cut gaps in all the doorways using a multitool.

There's a lot to consider when laying boards. They look better laid in a 'random' pattern so it's important to work out exactly where board lengths will meet in each row, to avoid any joints being too close together or looking too uniform.   

The landing floor slowly taking shape.

The boards that we we had chosen were unfinished oak - i.e., bare wood with no oil, lacquer or any other protective treatment. The problem was, the supplier didn't have quite enough unfinished oak for us to cover the whole of our floor, so as part of our discount, they supplied us with a batch of pre-oiled boards to make up the shortfall. Although made by the same manufacturer and identical in size, these would need to be sanded down to remove the oil coating in order to get them to match the appearance of our boards. More work... but worth it considering how much money we were saving.

Because the pre-oiled boards needed to be sanded, we used them mainly for areas such as wall edges, that would be cut down in width. It made sense as a narrower board was quicker to sand down than a full width one. This L-shaped section was used at the entry to the main bedroom... 

... and here it is fitted in place next to the wall. 

With the main part of the landing complete, we turned our attention to the area at the top of the stairs. Here's the first board cut ready to fit...

... and here it is screwed in place. 

We wanted the transition from the oak stairs to the oak flooring to be as smooth and seamless as possible. The stairs had been designed so that the top step should butt right up against the floor boards with no difference in height.

As ever, before gluing any boards down, we first laid them in position to make sure everything was going to fit.    

The adhesive was messy stuff so we had to be careful not to get any on the boards or the freshly-painted walls.  

The cardboard packing provided a temporary walkway to protect the new boards. The unfinished oak would not be fully protected until we had applied treatment (and we wouldn't be doing that until we'd finished laying all the boards).

The reason we had chosen to use unfinished oak boards was primarily to try and match the unfinished oak of the staircase. 

We also wanted to avoid ending up with oak that looked too orange; we'd seen a lot of pre-oiled oak boards that looked more like pine (presumably because the manufacturers used cheapo oils and lacquers). 

The transition from the top step to the landing floor worked out really well. It was perfectly level and we worked hard to make sure there was a neat edge where the boards met the step. The unfinished oak was a good match in colour and once they are both oiled, it should make the stairs and floor look completely unified.   

Painting: lounge

Sunrise looking out of the kitchen window. 

After the debacle with our defective Fermacell boards, we were faced with re-doing a lot of work. We had discovered that most of the walls in the house had 'ladder lines' (caused by a manufacturing fault in the Fermacell boards) so we had no choice but to go back and re-apply multiple layers of Fermacell's Fine Surface Treatment (FST)... everywhere. It's a kind of lightweight filler/skim coat that is used in place of plastering; great at smoothing out the coarse surface of Fermacell, but not so great at correcting defective boards.  

We had already applied one layer of FST and the 'ladder lines' were still showing, so how many more layers would we need in order to put this right? Nobody (not even Fermacell) really knew - it's one of the problems of using materials that are not in regular use, we found it impossible to get any reliable advice, so we were left to figure it out for ourselves. 

It was a real pain. Light switches and sockets had to be removed and FST trowelled over the walls again. Once dry, the FST had to be sanded flat (again) and to add to our frustrations, we found this had to be done at night, so that lamps could be used to show up the shadows of any slight imperfections. To add injury to insult, Alan picked up a repetitive strain injury in his shoulder from the constant trowelling and sanding. 

After several tiring nights, we had completed the extra layers of FST in the lounge and it was ready to be painted. 

Having been impressed with the Little Greene paint we'd used in the hall, we decided to use it again for the lounge, choosing a (rather inappropriately-named) shade called 'Kitchen Green'.

We'd considered several colours but had realised that with so many windows in the house, the interior decoration worked best when reflecting the views outside. And outside it was all trees, fields, sky and stone (as the window in the picture shows), so natural greens, browns, blues and greys seemed the most harmonious choices.

After all our work to correct the issue, the unwanted lines in the Fermacell board seemed to have been concealed; even with the lights on, the walls looked flat and smooth. It wasn't perfect (by our standards at least) but it was a significant improvement on what we had. 

Stairs: part 2 - Under-stairs area

The new stairs were a big hit with the site inspector.

He was probably relieved that he didn't have to climb that ladder anymore (any excuse to post this clip again).

Going up was never a problem, but getting down again was another matter...

Halfway up the stairs, is the stair where he sits (there wasn't any other stair, quite - like - it, etc)

While the glass bannisters were being manufactured, we still had a lot of work to do in order to get the stairs prepared.

The first issue was that part of the hot water system (grey cylinder pictured below) was sticking out further than we'd have liked.

As the picture below shows, the grey pressure vessel and some of its pipework was protruding beyond the line of the stairs. Despite all the planning and design, house-building always throws up issues like this - jobs overlap, but tradesmen don't necessarily concern themselves with the job that follows their own.

Boxing around it would really spoil the clean lines of the stairs, so we decided to just bite the bullet and get it moved. We weren't allowed to move the pressure vessel ourselves; to qualify for grant payments, the heating system has to be commissioned by certified engineers, so they had to be called back to do the work (and paid for their trouble, of course).

It didn't take too long for the heating engineer to remove the pressure vessel. The pipes were relocated to go through the wall to the right of the water cylinder.

This is the alcove on the other side of the wall under the stairs. This area is where our fridge-freezer will be located, so the pressure vessel has to be positioned right up out of the way.

Looking up at the pressure vessel, now located under the top step of the staircase.

Once the work had been completed, we repaired all the holes and repainted.

With hindsight, we should have located the water cylinder in a more spacious location (despite being advised that it was fine by several heating engineers). Trying to squeeze it under the stairs had caused us a multitude of problems; if we ever build again, we'll be constructing a separate room to house this kind of equipment.

Solid oak is sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity and if allowed to dry out too much will start to crack. The water cylinder was well-insulated so only radiated a small amount of heat, but being situated in such an enclosed space there was a chance that temperatures could build up, so we felt it was prudent to insulate underneath all the stair treads.

We had a lot of Celotex left over from the roof insulation, so it was a great way to use up all those off-cuts.

Looking up at the bottom of the oak steps, with the first piece of insulation being wedged into place.

It was a pain cutting the Celotex to shape, with lots of odd angles and pipes to squeeze around, but it will be worth it if it prevents the steps from splitting or buckling in future.

Although the stairs had been designed to support a heavy weight, we noticed that the whole structure was flexing slightly when walking up or down, causing a few creaks and squeaks. Not unusual for a staircase, but too much movement could cause cracks in the Fermacell that we would be using to board around it.

Since we were building a frame to support a cupboard door, we decided to make it extra strong so that it doubled up as additional bracing for the whole staircase.  

Alan cut notches out of the staircase framework and fitted a column of thick CLS studs underneath. One in the kitchen 'fridge cupboard' and two in the cupboard under the stairs.

The heating system will need to be serviced from time to time, so it was important to make sure that it was possible (if not exactly easy) to reach all the levers and bolts. 

A few noggins and the triple stud arrangement was complete. The staircase felt solid as a rock after that, which was just as well because we also needed to cut away some of the support framework lower down.  

We were not sure why the framework was cut at an angle, rather than straight down. It made access to the space under the stairs very awkward, plus was going to cause problems with the cupboard door, so it needed to be cut out. 

Before removing the diagonal section (marked with the red arrow below) we contacted the stair designers to make sure it wasn't going to weaken the structure.  

The stairs after we had cut away the diagonal section. We also added some extra supports inside the cupboard.

Finally, Alan made a timber frame around the whole aperture that will act as a liner for the cupboard door.

The glass bannister will be bolted to the side of the stair treads so all the boarding around the staircase will need to be completed before the glass is fitted.

This was a job which we really hadn't been looking forward to; cutting Fermacell to fit under all those stairs was going to be really awkward. The first step was to make a cardboard template.

Once the template was finished, the shape could be transferred onto a sheet of Fermacell. The site inspector supervised this job personally.

To avoid any cracks appearing in future, we tried to make the main area out of one continuous piece. Alan found it was best to cut the Fermacell steps using a handsaw; it was a slow process but accurate, hopefully meaning we would have fewer gaps to fill later.

The template worked well and the Fermacell fitted snugly under the stairs.  

Access to the upper area was extremely limited so fitting the Fermacell under the top steps was tricky.

The Fermacell boarding screwed firmly into place around the stairs.

Unfortunately the pipe emerging from the floor (bottom right) could not easily be moved so we would need to find a creative solution to hide that.

Alan boxed in the pipe using Fermacell, but access to the lever valve was still possible by reaching around inside.

We might be able to disguise this pipe box further when we come to fit the skirting boards.

Next job was to fill all the joints, gaps and screw holes with Fermacell jointing compound.

Using a handsaw to cut around the steps had proved very accurate so we only had a very fine gap to fill. Traffic going up and down the stairs will naturally cause some movement, so we used flexible caulk for these gaps to reduce any chance of cracking.

Once the jointing compound had dried, we trowelled on an ultra-thin layer of FST (Fine Surface Treatment), Fermacell's alternative to plaster skimming. An hour later, we gave all the new boarding a light sanding and it was ready to be painted.

After painting with two coats of Little Greene's 'French Grey', it was a perfect match for the walls (hard to tell from the picture as the colour looked very similar to the unfinished Fermacell board!)

The end grain of the oak steps looked a lot better after cleaning and oiling. We needed to treat these areas before the glass bannister is fitted, as we won't be able to access them afterwards.

The metal channel that would hold the landing glass was made up of two pieces (we saved money on the staircase by using these off-cuts). In order to disguise the join, we would need to clad the whole thing in Fermacell board. 

After cutting some Fermacell to size, we fixed it in place using strong adhesive.

After the joints had been filled, we used compound as a kind of skim coat to level out the surface. Alan used a lamp shining up at the face of the board in order to highlight any imperfections.

Problem areas marked out with pencil ready for further filling and smoothing.

Once painted, you would never know that it had been made up of several pieces. We will probably finish the top off with some kind of metal trim, after the glass has been fitted.