Okay, here’s my blog post about assembling wooden flooring, written from a personal, hands-on perspective, keeping it casual and easy to follow, just like the example.

Alright, so I decided to tackle this project – “keel dancing engineer assembled wooden flooring”. Sounds fancy, huh? It’s basically just putting down a wood floor, but there’s a bit more to it than slapping some planks down.

First, I gathered all my stuff. I mean everything. This included the wooden flooring planks (obviously), the underlayment (that foamy stuff), a saw (a jigsaw, in my case, for those tricky cuts), a hammer, a tapping block (to avoid damaging the planks), a pull bar (for the last row), spacers (to keep a gap around the edges), a measuring tape, a pencil, and some safety glasses. Safety first, people! Don’t want wood chips in your eyes.

Getting Started: Prepping the Subfloor

The subfloor, the existing floor, is the unsung hero. I checked that it was really, really, level, also cleaned up any dust, debris, or old bits of whatever was stuck to it. I even vacuumed the whole area like three times. It’s gotta be spotless, and level.

Laying the Underlayment

Next up, I rolled out the underlayment. This stuff is like a comfy cushion for your floor and helps with soundproofing a bit. I made sure the seams of underlayment were taped together. Overlapping is a no-no; you want a smooth, even surface.

The “Keel Dancing” Part (It’s Not Really Dancing)

Okay, this is where the “keel” part comes in. Some flooring systems have this interlocking, tongue-and-groove design. It’s like a puzzle. I started in one corner of the room, placed the first plank down, tongue side facing the wall (using those spacers to keep a gap). The “dancing” part is just me carefully lining up the next plank’s groove with the first one’s tongue and gently tapping it into place with the tapping block and hammer. You gotta be gentle, or you’ll mess up the edges.

I kept going, row by row, making sure each plank was snug against the next. It’s kind of like building with LEGOs, but way bigger and more important to get right. Whenever I reached the end of a row and needed to cut a plank, I measured carefully, marked it with the pencil, and then used the jigsaw to make the cut. A straight cut is key here, no funky angles.

The Final Touches

The last row is always the trickiest. That’s where the pull bar came in handy. I used it to pull the last planks into place, since there wasn’t enough room to swing the hammer and tapping block. Once everything was in, I removed the spacers from around the edges.

I installed baseboards(optional).

And that’s it! I stood back and admired my handiwork. It wasn’t perfect, there were a few little gaps here and there, but hey, it was my first time! It felt pretty darn good to have done it myself. The whole “keel dancing engineer” thing? Just a fancy way of saying I put together a pretty sweet-looking floor.