If you’re laying a hardwood floor anywhere within your home, then you’ll likely need some hardwood spline. A spline is the slither of wood that connects two pieces of hardwood floor, where they join and change direction. For example, where two hardwood floors meet in a doorway and the wood changes direction, you use a spline to connect the wood and hold it in place securely.
Before you begin to lay your wooden floor, you should prepare in advance everything you’ll need. And one of those things is a strip of hardwood spline. Here are some thing you need to know about and should consider with hardwood spline:
Consider How Much You’ll Need: It’s worth preparing in advance how much spline you need before you begin laying the hardwood floor panels. There’s nothing worse than getting started on a project and having to stop halfway through because you don’t have everything you need. If you don’t have any spline, then you’ll have to halt any progress as soon as you need to change the direction of the wood. Just as you will need to – or have already – calculated how much you’ll need of the actual wooden floor panels, work out how much spline you’ll need. It’s worth getting more than you actually need to take into account any errors or inaccurate estimates.
Get The Correct Size: This is just a simple tip, but be sure to get the correct thickness of the hardwood spline, that is the correct size for inserting between where the wooden panels join. As you probably know, hardwood panels come in different thicknesses, thus, so does spline. Again, there’s nothing worse than being halfway though laying the floor then realizing you have to stop because the spline is too thin or thick. So as well as getting the appropriate length of spline, be sure to get the correct thickness. If you don’t want to buy the spline of the specific thickness, you can always cut a piece of hardwood yourself to the appropriate length and thickness.
Where To Get Your Spline: Spline is available in your local DIY store, or you can even buy it online (and potentially at a huge savings) if you know what size you need. It can often be cheaper to buy things such as this from the Internet. Also, you can even make your own spline from any hardwood that you have available, although this is only recommended if you are quite handy and have a desire to put in the time and effort to do this yourself.
In conclusion, if you want your hardwood floor to flow seamlessly from one room to another, even when the wood panels change direction, then you’ll need some hardwood spline. Oak is often used as a hardwood spline for hardwood flooring, but you can also use plywood as a cheaper option. Take your time, and be sure to use the spline accurately with a tight fit, and no-one will be any the wiser that there is a transition in the wood.
