As the stairs were built in Ash, we decided to continue with the topic, and also use Ash wood for the floor. We mounted the floor ourselves. It did require tons of planning and puzzling.
We decided for a 2omm massive wood floor that we could sanded and renewed many times to extend its life as much as possible. If such floor are well set, and taken care of, they can last a 100 years or more?.
We ordered two different width: 140mm and 160mm of tongue and groove planks. Why? well it was the wood available for that price and type of wood. Ash is not as popular for floors as Oak. So it is not easy to find for an affordable price. Luckly, Holzbarmen had in stock just what we needed. The process was slow and it took months before we arrived to the sanding part. Step 1 to 6 took about 6 months. Step 7 & 8 took about 5 days.
- Inventory and Preparation: The planks, delivered in varying lengths, were measured and inventoried (~700 planks). A digital distribution was planned to determine placement.
- Plank Distribution: Planks were distributed to rooms, then laid out temporarily to finalize their arrangement. The hard part was to arrange it in a way to balance color, size, pattern, and spacing to achieve the desired aesthetic. It took about two weeks per room.
- Floor Gluing: The planks, made of solid wood (not click-system), were glued and pressed together, 3-4 planks at a time. The walls, which are made of clay panels, couldn’t withstand excessive force, so the progress was slow.
- Warping Handling: many bricks were used as weight to press down and align the planks, preventing warping. The drying process lasted about an hour.
- Edge Handling: 1.5 cm cork strips were added along the edges to accommodate the wood’s natural expansion and contraction due to environmental changes. Cork was chosen for its compressibility and resilience.
- Gap Filling: planks were not always the same width, so in some places we had gaps. Small gaps were filled with a mixture of ash powder and glue. Larger gaps were filled with ash wedges for consistency.
- Sanding: The floor and rim were sanded flush using a belt sander, then leveled with four passes of a floor grinder (grit progression: 60, 80, 100, 120).
- Oiling: the final step was oiling the floor using Rubio Monocoat Pure Plus 2C to enhance and protect the wood.
Here is how it went: