I spent part of the day today carrying 480 pounds worth of wood into the downstairs of my condo.
I stll haven't quite finished a previous project, but I decided it was time to make some more renovations to my condo. As I mentioned earlier, I just bought a new washer and dryer. The washer is a front-loading one that has a very high speed spin cycle. Right now the flooring underneath it is a some old warped linoleum that makes it very difficult to provide a stable surface. Because of this, the washer tends to vibrate violently if I use the high speed spin setting. I have improved the vibration situation by putting a 3/4" piece of MDF under the washer, so I figured putting a hardwood floor down should work well, too. Yes, it doesn't really make the most economic sense since the MDF was working, but the hardwood flooring would look so much nicer than a piece of MDF and I had been thinking of eventually installing hardwood floors in this area of the condo, so this was just enough extra inventive to make me decide to do it now.
The wood is called kempas and comes from China. It has a nice grain and color. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be some sort of endangered rainforest wood. I don't imagine it is - it was pretty inexpensive.
Now I just have to make sure I have all the right tools for installing it. The last two hardwood floors I installed in my condo were glued down since the subfloor was concrete. The area where the new flooring is being installed has a wooden subfloor so I decided to use 3/4 solid wood tongue and groove planks. It can be nailed down, but I think I need to first drill holes in the tongues, otherwise the nails might split the wood.
Time for some research...