Maple Flooring

Yesterday I did some clean up in the house, then began laying out the wood for the day. I had planned to only work in the morning then load up the trailer and go to the dump. I had reached the point where the Bostitch flooring stapler couldn't be used due to interference from the wall and I had to switch to using a finish nailer.

My Campbell Hausfeld nailer is 18 years old, and I had used it to lay the entire floor in both our Kingston and Olympia homes. I had also used it for all the trim work on both houses plus numerous projects over the years. It still worked well and I recently replaced the rubber tip. I had just started nailing when I stopped to add a strip of nails. The spring coil that keeps tension on the nail supply broke and while I tried (without success) to rig up a quick fix, I notice the plastic feed gate was also broken & ready to fall off. Doh! I gave up, took a break and researched nail guns on the net while Lynna fixed lunch. I found parts for my gun were available but expensive and wasn't sure I should spend the $$ on such an old gun. After lunch the UPS man dropped off the hip waders I was expecting. I had previously bought two vintage bamboo fly rods and an Orvis vest, so once I tie up some leaders and find my flies & reel, I can do some fishing when we get settled in the house.

Later I fired up the tractor and placed some crushed rock in front of the doors to my shop and then made a parking stall for the tractor over by the retaining wall. After that, I hooked up the utility trailer to our Pacifica. Before I could load it up, I had to air up the tires. It had begun to rain but eventually we got it loaded up, covered with a tarp and drove to the transfer station.

We went to Home Depot to shop nail guns. They didn't have much selection and the prices seemed average. I had recently found a good buy on a new air compressor at Western Tool Supply, so we headed there next and arrived about 15 minutes before closing. I was able to check out several guns and got a nice Hitachi for $20.00 under the lowest price I had found in my search.

Today I used my new nail gun to finish out the Family Room and Nook area. I just have one partial strip left to piece in front of the Pony Wall. The new gun is smooth and has adjustments to control the depth of nail from flush to counter sunk. It has a switch to go from single to tap nailing where my old one would do either without a switch. This is a safety feature and I soon got used to it.

Mehai, our sider had called at lunch time to let me know he would come by in the afternoon to replace the siding and cornerboards that the roofers had removed from the North Gable end when they installed the cricket & fixed the roof flashing. He brought a couple of his crew along and they worked about 2.5 hours. When we talked price, he only asked for $50.00 but I held out for $75.00 since they are good, hard working boys and I had expected to pay more.