Finished upstairs flooring

Upstairs view of the finished floor, sanded and varnished. There are three coats of varnish on the hemlock floor. You can't quite slide on it with your socks (which is probably a good thing), but it is a nice finish.

Francois did a nice job, filling in the knots and some of the gaps that opened in the joints (it's what hemlock does).

Finished railings and floors

Here's a look at the finished railings with the finished staircase and the finished floors. The railings, stairs and window trims are ash that was cut in the woods (click here!).  and finished and installed by Willy the timberframer. Good view in this picture of how it all works together. The yellowishness of the hemlock timbers and ceiling planks matches the lighter birch floor planks, the knots in the timbers go with the knots in the floor planks, and the bright hues of the ash are brought in the brighter floorboards. The floor brings it all together.

I sound like an art critic.

The flooring detail shows how the lower grade wood actually works better in the farmhouse. The higher grade hardwood would have made it look like a concert hall or museum.

Wood flooring isn't the ideal covering for a hydronic slab. It does not conduct heat very well, and it requires a high-grade OSB subfloor to keep it stable with the expansion and contraction as well as the high humidity associated with a hydroninc slab. When Francois (the current tenant of the house)  is  not supplementing with wood, he needs to keep the temperature of the slab at 79 or 80 degrees F to keep things comfortable, about 5 degrees F higher than the recommended temperature for a "naked" floor.

One last finishing touch to go: the floorboards. We've got some hardwood at the sawyer that we'll use for this. It will probably be ash like the staircase.

Floors ... at last!

We finally had the floors installed downstairs and they look great. We had them installed on house II, but decided at the last minute to have part of the hardwood installed on house I.

We chose 2 1/4'' yellow birch in horizon grade (that's actually 3rd grade) from BSL (hardwood floor company from the Gaspe). This grade has knots in it, but that's okay because because the timbers also have knots in them, and the multihued daeker planks bring  out the hues in the knots of all the other wood finishing we have.

Yellow birch (as the name implies) has a nice yellowish hue that matches the Hermlock timbers. It's also cheaper than the other hardwood species.

The only thing left to do now is the bedroom whcih will be done with black cherry from our own woods.