Our friend Wes Clark is an inveterate golfer. He’s a whole lot more comfortable swinging a pitching wedge than a hammer. So, on a recent warm Saturday morning — perfect weather for 18 holes — it was strange to see him on his hands and knees in the spare bedroom of his Castro Valley, Calif., home, nailing down a hardwood floor.

"I talked it over with my friends. One by one, they all said, ‘Don’t do it, you’ll mess it up.’ That made me want to do it more. Hey, I took wood shop in junior high, even built a telescope from scratch once. I’m comfortable with tools and I figured it couldn’t be that hard."

Having made the decision to be do-it-yourselfers, Wes, 57, and his wife, Hui Ping, headed off to the land of "You can do it. We can help." After spending a half-hour or so in the flooring aisle of Home Depot, they decided on prefinished tongue-and-groove stick flooring in a scraped Manchurian walnut.

"We were making the room into an office; we wanted something rich and dark. The walnut complemented our furniture, and it contrasted nicely with the white walls," Clark said.

Wes and Hui Ping had plenty of choices. Not only are there dozens of types of wood and finishes, but there are also various types of materials and installation methods. And prices can range from as little as $2 per square foot to $20 or more.

They could have chosen a floating laminate floor, which is made of a dense fiberboard core with a paper pattern layer sealed under high pressure with polymers. No nails or glue needed. It is sold as planks that snap together to form a monolith that "floats." Laminate flooring is the least expensive choice, but top-of-the-line versions look anything but cheap. It’s also very durable and scratch resistant. It sells for about $2 to $7 a foot.

Another choice, and usually a step up in price, would have been an engineered hardwood floor. These look similar to laminate floors and are installed the same way. What makes them different is that the top layer is hardwood. They can be sanded and refinished. An engineered hardwood floor is less durable than laminate, but many people prefer the warmth and patterns of natural wood to laminate. Engineered hardwood flooring sells for about $4 to $10 a foot and up.

Bill came back at 8 a.m. Sunday. Fueled by Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Wes, Hui Ping and Julie had already been at it for an hour. By 11 that morning the floor was in and the baseboard back up. Wes, Julie and Hui Ping were able to make the 1 p.m. curtain for a play in San Francisco.

Was it worth it? And wouldn’t Wes rather have been out on the golf course?

"When we first started looking, it seemed that if we hired an installer, we would have to spend $5,000 to get the type of floor we wanted. Well, we got what we wanted and ended up spending a grand," Clark said.

"The actual installation is the fun part. It’s all the stuff beforehand — moving furniture, painting, hauling 80-pound boxes of wood up the stairs — that’s the drudgery."

Would he do it again?

"Well, I wouldn’t do a whole house, but another room or two? Sure. This really built my confidence. My parents were do-it-yourselfers back in the ’50s, when people didn’t have too much money. They taught me about the satisfaction of a job done well."

Does he have any advice for others who are thinking about installing their own hardwood floors?

"Buy a good pair of kneepads."

***

What’s your opinion? Leave your comments below or send a letter to the editor. To contact the writer, click the byline at the top of the story.

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