If you want to change the appearance of your home with hardwood flooring installation, you can hire someone to do the job or you can take a shot at it yourself.  If you hire it out, be prepared to spend significant money with a professional contractor.  However, if you do it yourself, you better do some research and learn the basics of hardwood flooring installation as this is not something you can just jump right into.

Understand that there different types of floor that will lend themselves to every room in the house.  You will not use the same stuff in high traffic areas as you would in low traffic areas. Nor would you use the same type of wood in your living room as you would your kitchen or bathroom.  Knowing the differences and the environment that the wood is going to be placed in is very important.

If you are going to be doing hardwood flooring installation over concrete, you are going to need to take precautions against moisture as it has a very drastic affect on the wood.  To do this, you should put down a film barrier before staring the installation.  This will give you that extra level of insulation between the concrete and the wood.

Before you lay down your first board, choose a center point to the room that will be where the focus of the flooring is.  This is basically where you are going to start and something that you want to highlight in the room.  For instance, if you have a beautiful fireplace and mantle, you can use this as your starting point.

Once you have established your focal point, you will need to establish a chalk line so that the first board is laid down perfectly.  This ensures that the remainder of the room will also be straight and allow you to avoid that uncomfortable situation half way through when you realize the whole room is off balance.

When you unpack your boards, you are going to notice that they all come in different lengths.  This is what creates that beautiful design.  However, before you nail anything down, you will want to test fit each section to ensure that everything is going to fit okay.  All joints should be staggered and it is recommended that you have at least 12 inches separation between them, more if possible.

If you want to get a little tricky, you can try blind nailing to hide all off the nails and not have to worry about them popping up at a later time or having to flush nails if you ever have to refinish your floor.  This is done by driving the fastener through the tongue of the board and then when the next board is set in place, it is covered.  Your floor will have the look of being glued down, but the security of fasteners.

There is plenty of information and instructional video available on the web to do this project.  Make sure you look them all over and that you are comfortable with the process before you begin.  This is a huge investment on your part and something that will add significant value to your home when it is complete.  That being the case, you are going to want to make sure the hardwood flooring installation is done properly.