Rabinette has done his share of high-end homes before, but this one was in a league of its own, featuring huge rooms, massive closets and two elevators, not to mention a room with 15 custom-made bunkbeds for the homeowners’ grandkids. “It was their dream home,” Rabinette says. “It was out of this world.”
He and his crew began by putting down a 3/4-inch plywood subfloor and underlayment with a moisture barrier, then started installing the prefinished French white oak on the first floor of the home, using adhesive and some nailing. The flooring flowed throughout the entire “U-shaped” first floor of the home, from the humongous living room, into the master bedroom (which was essentially the entire back half of the house), to the kitchen and back to the living room.
"You start it with control lines and once you hit that, you never veer off,” Rabinette says.
The gem of the first floor is a compass medallion in the foyer. Rabinette used a router to cut the medallion in and used a compass on his phone to ensure it was aligned correctly.
The most complex part of the project, however, was the second-floor’s 1,200-square-foot study room, which featured a chevron pattern.
"That was actually a very, very, very intricate room,” Rabinette says. “The ceiling panels are lined up with the table, with the floor, with the border, with the cabinets––everything is just set perfect in that room.”
Rabinette and his crew began by installing a French white oak border in the room, then snapped lines for where a wenge and oak inlay would run next to the border around the room. After marking the lines for the inlay, they jumped to the middle of the room and began installing the prefinished French white oak chevron boards. When the chevron was installed, they carefully trimmed any boards that ran past snapped lines and placed the wenge and oak inlay.
Fortunately, despite working in a brand-new building, the crew had time and space to work without having to worry about other trades on site, and the entire project wrapped up in 11 weeks, just one week longer than Rabinette had scheduled for it.
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"I've been doing this for a long time, and this has been one of the best builders I have ever worked for in my life,” Rabinette says, adding that the entire team involved was efficient and dedicated, making for a process that ran as smoothly as possible from beginning to end.
Rabinette’s not entirely sure why he likes the pressure of high-stakes wood flooring projects such as this one, but perhaps it’s because sometimes the higher the stakes, the greater the reward—like when the homeowner saw the installed compass medallion for the first time and began to shed tears of joy.
“I’m a Virgo, so I’m a people person,” Rabinette says. “The happiness and joy she had when I dropped in that compass medallion … that’s rewarding to me.”
Suppliers:
Adhesive: MAPEI | Nailer: DeWalt | Underlayment: Whisper Mat
