First step from being a construction site to becoming a home

This post was written back in mid January 2012....life gets busy, things keep on happening, and I never got around to finish it..
So here it is on Seatondale flooring.
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Finally today we are starting on the corridor flooring. 

Although the timber boards themselves have been transported to site from mid-December, in order for the timber boards to accustom to the indoor condition, it was necessary to keep them on site for over 2 weeks before laying them in place.

Because we are installing flooring on top of the uneven concrete slab, firstly we have to start with building the levelled base.  The base battens were built with approximately 30cm spacing, but if they are not all at the same level, the finished floor will not be even at the end.  Like in the photos, line by line, the floorers patiently checked the levels.  It is a painfully time consuming process.  We really had a lot of respect for their professionality.

The first row.  If this one is not straight, everything else follows will not be straight.  The floorers set up the straight line with red laser light, and place the floor board parallel to it.  We could sense the seriousness of the floorers.

After confirming the first row, the floorers moved on to the second and third row swiftly. 

Normally, every 6 rows there will need to allow for an expansion gap of 2.4mm.  However because this is the corridor, so we decided to place the expansion gap in the centre of the corridor.  

Because timber is a living material, it expands and contracts according to the weather; this gap of 2.4mm absorbs this timber movement.

Here the corridor flooring is finished.  As we are using floorboards of 20mm thickness, simply by walking on the new floor, from the foot we can sense this specific feeling created by solid timber.  There are also timber flooring which is engineers and manufactured, which although tricks our eyes, it can not trick the feelings on our skin.  Our senses as human beings do not lie.

This is Ping Wong, the floorer we are working with this time.  We have worked with him on more than 3 projects so far.  We have requested him to carry out the sample test of different finishing paint.

This time we have decided to specify a water-based finishing paint.  

In order to make something good, it is essential to carry out analogue tests like this.

Japanese version of this post can be viewed HERE.