Hardwood floor inlay project

[steve joly]

I made a post some time ago regarding making my own hardwood flooring, from cutting the trees through the tongue and groove process. Over the last week I have started to put them down and I'm very excited with how they are coming out and figured I'd share some photos of how I put together the foyer. All the joints are tongue and groove or splines, it was a fun project, my first time doing flooring that wasn't just straight.

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[daryl moses]

Very, very nice. What species of lumber did you use?
I was going to do the same thing a couple of years ago. Was going to use hickory as we have a lot of it here on the farm. Even cut the trees and had a guy with a band mill cut it. But I couldn't find anywhere close to have it kiln dried. Ended up selling most of the lumber.
Again, great job, looks great!!

[steve joly]

The floor is red oak, all from my property, the border is black walnut, from a farm 15 minutes away, and the inlay is oak walnut and mahogany.

As as for the kiln drying we air dried the wood for a year then I used my trailer to make a dehumidification kiln and kiln dried everything to final moisture content. Then we let the finished flooring sit in my house for a year. I'd say it is well acclimated.

[Frederick Skelly]

Man, that looks great!

[Morey St. Denis]

Great looking work! It does however occur to wonder in what county and development your home is situated so that the major ordinates of the compass rose appear to precisely align with the floor plan of your home? Might it be the Chicago area? That city was redeveloped along the compass grid only after the majority of the established city was burned to the ground in 1871.

[Tom M King]

Nice work, from the lumber handling to the finished floor!!!

[mike mcilroy]

A shame to walk on it. Fantastic work.

[Michelle Rich]

fantastic job, from tree to finished floor.

[steve joly]

Thank you for the kind comments. The center piece is not a compass I wasn't prepared to make anything off angle on my first time around. And if it was a compass it would have been at a completely random angle.

[Scott Brandstetter]

Wow, just wow. I can only imagine what will go through your mind every time you walk across that floor. That gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "take your shoes off before entering". Great job.