Wood Flooring: A Complete Guide to Layout, Installation & Finishing Hardcover – Illustrated, February 23, 2010

This book is a "hardwood floor" masterpiece, covering ALL aspects of wood floor installation from surface prep and inspection to refinishing existing floors. The book FULLY illustrates the standard Harwood floor process as well as explaining the installation of contrasting inlays and complex wood medallions.The book fully reviews the details of installation between narrow and wide plank floor as well as the advantages of the various species of wood flooring.The author is a renowned expert in the wood floor industry, you could NOT do better than to read this book before undertaking a new hardwood project.I learned a great deal from this book, wish I had found it sooner! The price of this book is returned in "spades" by all the hard-won tips and installation tricks the author outlines in this book. Even if you are NOT new to hardwood flooring you will learn many new tricks and issues to look out for by reading this book.Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in hardwood flooring. I would hate to learn the "hard way" many of the issues the author exposes in this comprehensive book.Regards,Rick S.

I'm your average woodworker with a handful of tools in my shop, I'm not a professional floor installer. In fact, I knew nothing about installing floors, but after looking at a handful of quotes to have somebody else install my floor, I figured I should try it myself. However, the books on installing wood flooring simply don't provide the right type of information. Or at least I thought they didn't until I read Peterson's book. All I can say is wow, this is exactly what a flooring book should be.Now, to the individual who complained that Peterson showed you how to measure the moisture content with a fancy gauge, guess what? He also provided guidelines on not only why you wanted to do this, but what happens if your flooring falls outside this range. When you're flooring investment is several thousand dollars, it's best to listen to the experts and do it right, or you'll be doing it again. Peterson, knows his stuff and explains the in's and out's of flooring, along with some nice tidbits and tricks when installing flooring.If you only purchase one book on floor installation, make it this book.

I had the same complaint with this book that I did with another I bought -- not much information on layout if you have irregular shaped rooms. This book, however, does go into huge detail about laying out mosaic type flooring and the pictures are just awesome. The only mention Peterson makes about laying out an odd-shaped room is on one page.I hate to harp on the lack of information, but it was part of the title and led me to believe there would be more help. Finding the right way to layout a floor in a room that has 8 or 9 walls, none of which are parallel, is kind of a mind-messing challenge (or at least it was for me, a first-time layer of pine flooring).I really like this book for all the interesting ideas. If I ever get more skilled I'd love to try some of the designs Peterson demonstrates. The instructions for some of the flooring is really great.

I can't tell you how impressed my husband and I were with this book. Most books that we've read in the past always left us with more questions than answers, until we read Charles Peterson's book on wood flooring. It addressed all of our questions (and we had a lot of them), plus it included so many helpful safety and trade tips. But the real bonus was learning the `why' behind each step of the wood flooring process: layout, installation, and finishing. If you're a visual learner, there's a lot of pictures that clearly demonstrate installation techniques that compliment the written explanation, not to mention beautiful floors that the author created....a sure sign of his passion and pride in the craft. We enjoyed the book so much that we plan to read it a second time to make sure we didn't miss any valuable tips. This summer we'll take on our first ever wood flooring project and feel confident that Charles Peterson's book prepared us for the challenge!

A Really impressive book. When this book arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see so many beautiful full color photographs. The formatting and layout of the book is logical and comprehensive. I also purchased the accompanying DVD and it is clear the Author is an expert and his insights really come through. For example, he goes into quite a bit of detail about various sanders. This isn't just "Sand to a 220 grit" He talks about different sanders, when to use which, how to maintain them, and pitfalls to watch out for. My point is, he provides useful information even for people with some experience in the topic.That being said, if there is a criticism, it is that much of the material may go over the heads of the average installer, and they might benefit from addition attention dedicated to the basics.

My wife allowed me to use her account to write this review.I am one of the only National Certified flooring professions in my state. In order to obtain my certification I had to pass extensive written and hands on testing. The wood flooring industry is plagued by a lack on knowledge. Most information on wood flooring is TRULY difficult to obtain or very contradictory between publications. As being one of the only three professions in the entire state of Connecticut that was able to pass National Certification testing, I constantly have to compete against poor quality. I hope this professional level resource can help change that and make consumers, builders and architects aware of proper methods.The book also provides techniques that I had to pay thousands of dollars to attend expert classes. At the same time these expert techniques have been simplified to a new level. The information for moisture surveying, problems and cures section is beyond anything I have seen published to date.Tony C.