Hey experts, I'm in the middle of a small flooring job and wanted some opinions before proceeding. I have refinished a few hardwood floors, and installed a few laminate floors, but this is my first hardwood install. I've almost finished racking the room, and before anything is fastened, I decided to pump the brakes and make sure I visited this site. I recently had the carpet replaced, and I'm wondering if they went a bit too far with the carpet for my transition. It's pretty much too late to fix if I botched this part, as the cuts on the opposite wall have all been made...but should I have cut back the carpet a bit and extended the flooring more towards the door jam, or do you think it will look fine once the transition strip is down? Secondly, even though at first glance it seems like overkill, everything I read online and the manufacture recommended a 3/4" gap at the walls. The drywall was not placed high enough to allow expansion underneath so that I could measure to the studs, so it's gapped to the drywall. Where in the world do you find trim thick enough to cover that gap? Even with shoe moulding I'm worried that I may see gaps. Once I've completely racked the flooring and I'm happy with the layout, do you have any suggestions for intelligently/efficiently taking the flooring back up in order to nail the floor down without creating a cluster #$@! and losing my layout? Lastly, and this is another 'too late now' question, I decided on Somerset prefinished, and it wasn't cheap...to say the least. I figured you get what you pay for, right? So how upset should I be that more than a few boards showed defects from their staining process. I was able to hide a few of these in the closet, but there were many like this...my opinion, any more than zero is a problem. I don't expect real wood to be perfect, but this isn't the wood, this is their process, and the lack of quality control bothers me. Is this pretty much expected regardless of manufacturer, or should I raise a stink with the vendor? Thanks!

Hi all, I am doing a reno to a 1960s townhome. The home had 1” strip hardwood. The hardwood was installed the length of the rooms. And in the strips were run the length of the hallway; which just so happened to be opposite the rooms. I removed the old 1” strip hardwood flooring to find that there was 3/4” plank boards. The boards are about 3.5” in width. The planks are installed on a diagonal. I then realized that the 1” strips were installed perpendicular to the joists and that is why the hall is different to the rooms. The ¾” plank subfloor is in good condition. I removed any nails from the strip hardwood. I then hammered in the old nails and screwed in every plank to the joists (joists are 16” OC) with 2.5” flooring screws (5000 screws). I will end up taking a floor sander to the planks because I found that there is gritty grime on some of the planks (most likely because of the plaster that was installed in the 1960s on the floor and ceiling). I also want to get rid of any high spots (wood chips) because of the nail removal from the 1” strips. So I want to install either ¾” hardwood (4 or 5 inch wide) or engineered hardwood. Here are my concerns. 1) I want to run the new hardwood in one direction. The direction will be parallel to the joists in the rooms. Is that ok? Or should I put ply on top of the planks? If I should put down ply suggestions on thickness? 2) I really don’t want to put ply down because that will change the height from the bathroom. Also there is a guard rail along the stairs and code states that the rail must be 48” high from the floor. The guard rail is old wrought iron and secured really well into a joist. I am trying to avoid removing the guardrail if possible. 3) Also I have one closet that I want to run the same hardwood in but the closet is on a concrete slab rather than sub floor. There is vinyl tile on the slab currently. I can see that the tile is glued on with a black tar type adhesive. Can I glue the hardwood right on the tile? Thanks.