Hardwood flooring around stair spindles
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- Опубликовано: 11 май 2017
- Rather than having the railing and spindles removed for installing hardwood flooring, I fitted the hardwood flooring around the spindles
woodgears.ca/home/spindles.html 
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Those poor flooring guys...
Hahaha yeah :D
Victor lucky flooring guys you mean. Matt did the tricky work for them. Although the banister rails did just get 19 mm (?) lower.
Doubtful. Carpet + padding likely adds up to about 3/8 - 1/2 inch in thickness when you stand on it.. I would guesstimate that the end result is maybe 1/4" (6-8mm) in actual height difference.
It really depends how busy they are. More short jobs tends to pay better than fewer long jobs.
I think they earned thier money that day..
I don't plan on doing or re-doing any hardwood floors in the house but I still always learn from your videos and love watching them to get your ideas. Thank you for taking the time to share!
Flooring wasn't made from salvaged ikea furniture and on hand fire wood milled into lumber...
-50 points
no stress tests with self made bathroom scale apparatus either
-25 points
But no pocket holes
+50 pts
Failure to make a jig and use the pantarouter to cut out the fit of the spacing.
-100
but used an home made band saw
+250 pts
No box joints used
- 100 points
I love the part where you included how it works, and the inclusion of why you wouldn't run into a tongue against tongue situation. It's these details I never would've noticed had they not been in the video( becuase I wouldnt think of it) but once you mention it it seems like an obvious question to be asked. Love the videos Mathias.
Hah! Love your "optimization". I wish you would have recorded the faces of the flooring guys when you showed them. Great work, Matthias!
I helped a friend install floors professionally for a while and I know how awful it can be having a customer that wants to help but at the same time it is appreciated.
x9x9x9x9x9 Clients often want to help... but it really isn't wanted. It doesn't improve productivity if I need to take the time to teach them how to do the job/make sure they don't cut their hands off.
Yep. I guess what I really should have said is it sucks when people want to be picky and want it a certain way when you know what will look best but as long as they are paying me I will do it however they want and if it's not what they thought it would be they are paying at least double. Thankfully that never happened to us.
The explanation of the process with the visualization was my favorite part. Thanks, Matthias!
Great video Matthias ! Brings me back to my high end finish installation days. :)
You wouldn't believe how many carpenters (even journeymen) got "let geaux" because they didn't take the time to "scribe" w/ zero tolerance in mind. Some actually tried to suggest putty to fill the gaps of stain grade, finished millworks ? Although it is fine to putty and caulk "paint grade" installations and also color sticks that help blend "stain grade" installs, there is nothing that will continue grain variations, short of drawing in grain at a pains takenly slow pace !
Zero tolerance scribes are the way to geaux ! The more you practice the tighter & easier it gets. If you do it all day everyday for years, against railings, stones and even rocks, your work takes on a the look of art and wonder.
I remember scribing the face frames of wine cabinets to the rock walls of alcoves in the Thunderbird Country Club (Palm Springs Ca.), so close that the members that came through on tour of the remodel would ask me how I fit the wood behind the rocks or if the back side of the rocks were flat and set in after and up against the boxes. It's very rewarding to see the finished product and in your own home you will feel that accomplishment for a very long time ! :)
Fine job sir ! :)
Steph_Louisiana
Redoing your flooring reminds me of my late grandpa - he was a master builder (40+years into the trade) or probably a wizard. We did laminate flooring in our old house 16-17 years ago and he used to just look at things like pipes and other awkward stuff and go outside, do a few cuts with a circular saw and come back with a perfectly fitting piece. No pen, no measuring, just his experience and memory at play and it was so marvelous watching him work. He died 3 years ago after a long decline in health, I wish I had more time to learn from him.
This is very enlightening having been a flooring associate at Home Depot. On the matter of reversing the board to nail it down we were never told that although that's something the installer is more concerned about. As far as I remember regarding assisting customers with laminate, engineered or solid wood flooring, the overriding questions were about pricing, which type was better and if they could get the boards to look EXACTLY the same.
"Why aren't you laying the floor yourself?"
Because I'd need three days and you need barely one. Also I won't see the mistakes you made. Mistakes I made I will see forever.
actually, it took two guys three days.
See, I am already misjudging how much work it actually is.
Would have taken me 3 years. 2.75 years of thinking about how I would do it and buying tools and materials, and then 3 months actually doing it.
im like that except it would take that long to get the money, and then a few days to put it in.. spread out between tthe 3 months.
I think someone was just being noisy mr knowitall,
I'm glad you are doing this yourself. I did my floors 10years with engineered Lumber, and it worked like a PRO.. and Knowing you, you could have done all by yourself.
Turn up to do a job... Matthias Wandel's house... how would you feel?
Alex Wills nervous af
Like doing house building work with my dad (architect). I pity each and every poor bastard that has to deal with him when he's not tormenting me.
Depends on the job.
Building a mantle or something
I would charge him double and put him to work sweeping up.
I always love Mathias saying "I think that came out ok" and the end result is a work of art! I say that because here in Australia, there is so many tradesmen doing dodgy stuff and it looks terrible yet cost is high. Nothing here is done of quality any more...
Nicely done! I was actually able to remove my banister and spindles when I had my flooring re-done. Sanded them all down and refinished them.
There is something deeply boring about your voice, but it is eminently informative and easy to listen to. Your videos are addictive and I am hugely jealous of your ability and aptitude. I look forward to seeing all your adaptations and developments etc. An inspiration.
I like his take on these kinda of things. I do remodels for a living and he approaches things incredibly different than industry standards
That was pretty cool! Liked how you did that around the stairs railing.
why not just use glue and saw dust to fill in the gaps. :)
maybe floor is streching and contracting so it would crack ?
Well the floor is nailed in place (its not floating) so it might not contract or move that much. Im not sure though, i installed herringbone parquet in my house, glued and nailed and it does not move much
Never never never never try to 'fill' in gaps like this. Each board is expanding and contracting with different temperatures and humidities. It is perfectly normal and expected for a hardwood floor to gap slightly in the winter and be flush in the summer months. If your floor is gapping excessively or it doesnt have enough room and is cupping or buckling your installer made a mistake. The most common mistake that would cause this is not properly acclimating the flooring. Whoever supplied your flooring should be able to tell you a propec acclimation time, if they don't know buy from somone else. If anyone tells you they can deliver and install any type of hardwood(including bamboo) or laminat in the same day run, run far away.
Yeah bamboos not really a hardwood, its actually a grass. And u can install one side of the hallway tight as long as you leave enough expansion space on the other side (for an average size hallway). Also note, that it expands mostly on the width and not the length .
I've installed a fair bit of hardwood flooring and I can appreciate how much work you're trying to do yourself. But at the same time not many people like being told how to do their jobs, haha. If I had a customer telling me which boards to use in a specific area I would probably lose my mind.
When I was a kid, I worked in a bike shop. We had a sign that said "Labor rate $30/hr, $40 if you watch, $50 if you help and $60 if you worked on it first.
انت انسان رائع يعجز اللسان عن وصف اعمالك وابتكاراتك المفيده للناس بكل المجالات شكرى وتقديرى لحضرتك (تلميزك ومتابع اعمالك من مصر Egypt )
Although it might taken longer, you could have cut a relief at the bottom of each spindle, similar to undercutting door trim. That way when looking down from top you wouldn't see the gaps.
Bill Gronikowski nailed it. trim the spindles and slide the floor under. this eliminates the seasonal shrinkage gaps,
Scott Steinson you would be there FOREVER trying to trim the spindles. The flooring guys had it right, remove the railing and re install. It's much easier than any of those options. Looks better, no shrinkage. I'm surprised Mathias didn't remove and reinstall it himself.
Thanks for finding creative ways to make videos while you're so busy moving. Good luck with the rest!
Love these practical videos where the skill set shines.
It looks good. I wonder how the railings will affect the flooring throughout the year with the change of seasons. Expansion and contraction with very little wiggle room.
I always enjoy seeing alternative methods on projects :)
HD sells (or used to) the splines for use when you need to reverse the nailing direction. They are a few bucks for a 4 foot strip of oak (species doesn't really matter as they are not seen) and I usually need to tweak them with an electric hand planer (or small block plane for really minor adjustments) to fit the groove of the particular hardwood that is being laid. They be a bit pricey, but make life easier.
Just a personal note on the edge piece, if it were me, I would have picked up a couple of lengths of stair nosing for the stairwell side of the pickets. Most major flooring manufacturers have these available for order, and you don't need to try to match the finish that you have machined off when the profile is put on. Also, the edge is usually doubled up, giving a much nicer radius, and it will likely now match the nosing that is installed at the top of the stairs.
(matching the finish on the ones in this video would not be much of an issue as it looked like just a natural/clear finish, but on some varieties with a really strong stain, getting the stain colour match correct, and then multiple coats of clear, it's often more work than it's worth)
good point about the stained thing. The nosing would have been quite expensive, and the way I had to have it split around the spindles, I wouldn't really have been able to use it.
I did something similar at a friends house some years back, it was some type of tropical cherry with a really dark stain that we were unable to get a factory piece to transition for the 1 step down between the dining room and the living room.
Couple things I did differently though, were to 1 - double up the thickness at the edge for a larger radius and for strength (staggered the joints), and 2 - cut off the tongue and groove on the ends of the pieces, as the T&G is not a tight fit, and did not look good when exposed when the radius was put on the edge. (the glued butt joint looked much better)
matthias bro you are a contractors worst nightmare. but at least we all learned something.
Congrats on 1 Million, Matthias!
Haha, when you were talking about digging through the boxes and you showed all the arranged pieces, I thought, "oh, the flooring guys are to *love* that."
As someone who does hardwood floors, these videos are entertaining. It is cool to see someone without the tools figure out their own way of doing it. Makes me feel lazy.
Your bandsaw skills are amazing!!
It's not worth the time and effort to get the exact length on runs. You cut the last board on a run and use the waste cut on the next run. You end up with 0 waste.
And a random distribution of the gaps, that doesn't look weird.
Looks great, I love the optimization idea. It would be like a huge puzzle. Way to go saving all that $$ with a little DIY
I love the frugality of this endeavor!
Thank you for educating us, 'Master Carpenter Mat'. Hard wood flooring tricks and techniques- fun.
Thanks to Matthias for the tricks he shows. I own an old House and have to restore a lot without spending a lot of money.
Nice trim under the stair overhang. Looks great!
Laying the floor in reverse...
I installed laminate in my house and though it's different I think the techniques would be the same.
Instead of going in reverse like you mentioned I used scraps to figure out the spacing when the flooring needed backfilled then trimmed the board against the wall and that way when those tricky sections met up with the main flooring seamlessly.
Thank you and we love sharing your for Hardwood flooring around stair spindles!!!❤❤❤
Thank you. I love this work. Greetings from Egypt
As a you tube creator of note, you can save money by doing the work /and/ make money showing yourself doing the work at the same time!
Electra Flarefire Ignoring the current state of youtube...
So long as saves money doing the work himself(This seems to be the case) and makes a non-zero amount from youtube, he's ahead posting the video, vs just doing the work and not filming it.
Have you ever made a video similar in quality to this?
It makes the work go about 10 times slower and then there is the editing....
stefantrethan It makes for better end results though.
max maker whats up i heard Jimmy Diresta give you a shout out on his podcast "making it" like 10 minutes ago (its an older episode) and then here you are commenting on a video I was watching pretty random lol
One of the best visuals of how tongue and groove.
"lack of time", sorts boards by size!
20 minutes vs 3 guys for 2 days.
Regarding the end of the video, we just glue the boards with F26 construction adhesive, then face nail and fill the holes with wood putty, then stain with a matching stain pen. You would never know the holes were there from the nailer. That does the job just fine, plus we usually only have to do that in low traffic areas such as in a closet or on the sides of the room near the walls.
Man that would drive me nuts trying to notch around every one, results look great though.
would have sucked without a bandsaw on site!
Typical rookie mistakes. In the hallway the butt ends make a narrow pattern down the middle of the floor (5:42). The pattern catches your attention and looks bad. When laying natural flooring randomness is a feature and should be utilized not eliminated. Also, I would have undercut the spindles and slid the flooring under the spindle to hide the seams. The way Matthias butted those joints they will open up over time and start to look raged.
Of course you would have done better. Emphasis on "would"
" Also, I would have undercut the spindles to hide the seams. The way Mathius did it those joints will open up over time and start to look raged."
I was thinking the same thing and I think thats what the installer sort of wanted to do but instead of an undercut remove and raise the entire railing.
Seasoned hardwood flooring should be pretty stable. But everyone is an expert on RUclips...
Have you ever seen a hardwood floor? Are you arguing that hardwood flooring doesn't separate and develop seams?
I am editing this post because I was rude and inconsiderate. I have a high degree of respect for Matthias and I regret that my remark was insensitive. I am leaving the text for history's sake.
Don't embarrass yourself. Your a great guy with many strengths but you are out of your depth here. If you want I will delete my post.
All the hard work has been done.
Surprised that you paid someone to do the work! and your intricate work probably intimidated the hell out of them. Most of those guys are highly skilled only in hiding the errors they make!
I love the attention to detail.
I wish I had your creative thinking brain. Matthias thanks for sharing.
Very excellent work done, thank you for sharing your amazing video
Fiddly work!! Came up nice - the missus will be happy
Great job Matthias! What did the flooring guys say when they saw your stake of every size together?
In many remodels I do, to save time and for tighter fits I cut on a slight bevel so I can use a plane or knife to remove a little material after a test fit to get it tight.
Yup, that came out okay. And based on the amount of work you did, I'm not surprised at their several hundred dollar quote for the railing! Did you have to trim all the doors yourself, or where they short enough from the carpet? That would have been another headache. Of course moving generally has a huge pile of unexpected things like that...
doors were already short enough. But the door trim needed to be trimmed. Another use for one of those useless oscillating tools!
You keep calling the tool useless, yet you use it all the time. If it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid!
Wordsnwood (Art Mulder) its his great sence of humor
i guess you dont understand sarcasm...
On the other hand, they're great at cutting off casts, which is what they were designed for -- my son had a broken wrist a few years back, so I saw one in action.
Nice job Matthias, as always!
Is the expansion & contraction of the floor as a whole likely to put pressure against the boards running perpendicular to the rest of the floor, thus putting pressure on the spindles without an expansion gap? I've seen floors develop 'bellys' in locations because of a corner where expansion isn't possible. Particularly around the corner shown at 3.35 may be a problem?
But if the fit is to tight won't it breake or warp when the house expands or contracts?
Residential floor guy for 6 years b4 becoming a commercial flooring guy for 18 years and I can tell you got more knowledge than some of the animals I worked with, lol. You could've Definitely done it yourself with a lil research
Very nice explanation of tongue and groove!
I think a big difference between furniture and homes is that homes can consolidate movement into a small area, so overlaps are necessary to hide cracks.
cant say I have ever seen balusters installed on sub-floor,,what type of floor was down before new maple ?
Contractors working for engineers. A match made in heaven! :)
The cutting part is so pleasing
Thanks for the video!I was a bit nervous for your safety in a couple of scenes, but we all know you are a pro...!
The flooring company did not know this guy is a woodworking Genius...
6/5/2019 USA Grandpa Bill: What I appreciate is that Matthias has the courage to try. He isn't defeated by negative thoughts. It is this quality that helped us win WWII. "Well, all we can do is try." Not: "Aww have another beer; it'll never work." Being semi-intelligent myself, and formerly arrogant in my youth, my confidence in myself caused me to attempt many things I screwed up. It is where I learned the four kinds of mistakes: "Oops, Uh oh, Aww sh*t, and Oh My GOD!" As I matured I counted the success of my days by the spreadsheet of my mistakes. Matthias is my hero. He gets in there; he puts his engineering mind to work; he comes from a woodworking background having grown up in it; he will tackle anything in wood, metal, electrical, or plumbing. From my chair here it is easy for me to question: "Well, why did he run the joint down the middle of the balusters (doubling his work) instead of just cutting longer and making the joint go through the spaces between the balusters to adjoin one long continuous edge of the edge piece?" There would have been no apparent joint in the middle. BUT, Matthias may see something I'm currently blind to because I do have times of cognitive blindness (looking for the thing right in front of me). Also, as my wife has often pointed out, I don't always listen so well. At any rate, I loved seeing him pull his band saw down the street. The smile from that one made me feel good.
Damn sir! I love your problemsolving skillz!
The floor looks great !
Very nice! Good option to removing the railing
very good Matthias ! and very good wood !
hermoso trabajo, el 15 de mayo es mi cumpleaños. y me voy hoy a un pueblo de nuestra costa que se llama Mar del Tuyú. que emocionado estoy.
you sir are a true engineer
Hey Matthias, as long as you and Rachel are happy with it, that's what matters.
When I removed my spindles, I found that they have been somehow "stapled"in to the rails at top and bottom. I am assuming that the entire section was Pre-fab'ed. I'm still at a loss of how it was done? Have you ever runinto this type of situation? How was it made? How did you remedy it?
Any advice would be appreciated.
PS...Also, is 45 degree cut on the slanted spindle sections a fairly standard angle?
Matthias, Very nice work around the Spindles. The results look fantastic with the new flooring. I'm sure the installers appreciated that and you organized the lengths of flooring boards so they could just call out the lengths they needed to have brought to them.
Thresholds can be a problem but you seem to have gotten them right. Looked like that was actual hardwood (not the "scientific engineered") with a finish? I'm guessing you now have an abundance of scraps to use on future projects?
" I'm sure the installers appreciated that and you organized the lengths of flooring boards so they could just call out the lengths they needed to have brought to them."
Probably not. The way it works is that the boxes are opened and one or two people pull out the boards and layout rows of floor in front of the nailer. They stagger the joints and make sure there are no runs with all short pieces or all long pieces. The last board is picked out and laid near the end waiting to be the last cut board. The last board is either close to length or way too long. If way too long the scrap is used as a starter in another row.
Cliff Hartle Agreed, I'm a general contractor and I know it would have been a real pain to have the boards all divided up like that. Working for some guy who thinks he knows how to do your job better than you would certainly test your patience.
Canadien... tu comprends le Français?... Alors je te dis bravo et merci. Very inventive and clever. Thank you
So for the posts, couldn't you have also scribed around the posts and taken lets say a mm off said post, then slid the board slightly covered underneath?
I'd really like more info on the transitions. I had my floor professionally installed, but the transitions don't look that good. Thinking I could replace them with something better, but it would be nice to learn from your experience first.
Wait! Your house wasn't made perfectly straight in every way too? lol. Those are some good tips getting around all of the misalignment stuff, thanks for sharing all of this!
Hey, I was just wondering - what's your opinion on the Saw Stop? I'm not sure if you mentioned it before but I couldn't find any of your videos on it based on title.
Like your woodworking shoes! I notice you where them a lot LOL. Keep up the good work.
Wish I had done this when I put in hardwood floor. I removed the railing and want to replace it with a different style, railing parts are expensive though.
Looks like laying flooring is a groovy job!
Nice work! I'm pretty sure you watched every board they layed down lol
Nicely done. Thanks for the flooring lesson :)
I love you no seem halfway. The most ideal floor would be one giant slab, the next ideal would be full length boards so no end seems needed.
You work is superb. I'm thinking about doing the same thing around the baluster at the bottom of my staircase. Like @chefdan87 said 5 years ago (2017). How do account for the expansion gaps needed when the seasons change?
Good job, Matthias!
Great looking floor!
Quite nice! I did see a few gaps, but as long as the Mrs or you don't mind, it's not a biggie
I found that maple flooring that is not finished does not have that small bevel. This made an excellent (and relatively cheap) workbench top on top of doubled-up 3.4" MDF, worked like a charm when glued and nailed using their normal technique. :)
that's a cool idea!
Easier to pull the balusters, put in a landing tread and move on. It would look better too.
He didnt have time to pull it all and the company quoted $700 to do it.
Syndiball he couldve done that in less time.
Agreed. The amount of time and energy put into that was pointless. I would never do that. I would have just cut them all out and reinstall.
Totally agree. It is easy to remove the spindles without destroying them and reglue. Cutting around them does not look good at all.
Thanks for the video. Always easier to do something once you have seen someone elsse do it
Muito bom belo trabalho 👏👏👏👏 Brazil
the "NOT" was hilarious !!
I was half expecting this to end with "So I decided to just install the floor myself..."
Would it have been possible to remove the bottom x amount of wood around the spindles in place so that the flooring could have been fit to it more easily? Or the bottom x amount of wood completely cut off (in place), the flooring put down normally, then reattach the spindles?
and how would you make the cut precisely in place? And how would you reattach the spindles? Ithink that would be a lot more work than what I did.
trabalho excelente parabéns