How would I repair holes in an 100year old hardwood floor?

[Nancy Gruner]

The previous owners cut a medium size square hole and a triangular hole in the floor and I would like to fix it so I can refinish it. However, they only left the piece for the triangular piece and I am unable to find the pieces for the square hole. The wood is a dark color without the finish on it and has a very prominent grain, yet it is smooth and does not seem to splinter. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I have yet to determine the type of wood or the best approach to repair it.

Thank you for the responses, here are a couple photos taken of the one with the boards still present. The hole without the boards is in a spot with very poor lighting and is 17inch x 16 1/2inches.

[Matt Evans]

Nancy,

Welcome to Sawmill Creek.

The first step is to identify the wood. Is there any chance you can take a photograph of it and post it?

Also, what size is the hole? Is the hole through one board or several? (Actually, a picture of the holes would be great too. . .)

[sean m. titmas]

whenever i do a remodel for an older home and need to repair the flooring i locate a salvage yard in the local community to look for old flooring. many homes built more than 50 years ago most likely bought their flooring from the same suppliers so there is a strong possibility that the salvage yard material ( which is usually locally generated) could be a match.

you can also check the rest of the house and cut the flooring out of a closet or under a set of stairs to use as a patch.

[Stephen Musial]

I had the same problem in our old house. I took boards out of closets and used them for the patches.

From your description, could be walnut or quartersawn oak. Can you post a couple of pictures?

[Craig Hemsath]

Looks like a trap door for something. There's not piles of cash...or dead bodies...under there is there?

[Don Abele]

Nancy, any ideas of what that triangular cut out was for? Looks odd. Especially as it looks like the adjacent area is cut out square. The two holes in the corner are also very odd.

As for type of wood, can you take pics of other areas and maybe the underside of the cut area showing it unfinished.

Oddly, the grain pattern in the picture looks like the old southern yellow pine trim that I found throughout my house. But SYP as flooring?

Be well,

Doc

[Neal Clayton]

i have a house full of yellow pine floors ;). it was very commonly used as flooring in the south. still is actually, just hard to get the quality that they had in the old growth timber still available 100+ years ago.

as for the proper means of repairing this, that's gonna be kinda tricky.

are the rest of the floor boards room length or are they random lengths? (do you have joints in the middle of the floor or do the boards go wall to wall?)

if they're random lengths, how i would fix it, is pull up the few boards from the wall thru the hole. have a local millwork company make you some replacement boards for the hole, also in random lengths. then cut the original boards at random spots and fit in the new boards over where the hole was to match up to the old boards. then sand and refinish the entire floor (sounds like you plan to do that anyway).

to do this you'll have to remove the baseboards to get the first floor board out.

if you go this route of splicing in new boards to cover the old hole, you'll have to consider that with your finish too. as sean mentioned, old pine like that darkens with age quite a bit, so newly cut boards will be quite a bit lighter in color even after staining (if you plan to stain them or use a darker-than-natural finish). you'll have to experiment a bit with finishes to find a finish schedule that causes them to match up when you're done. if you can find salvaged old pine you might be able to get them closer to start with.

[Clara Koss]

i would check areas of the house that would be under a large piece of furniture or in a closet and use a piece from there... i did that once with carpet when my carpet was stained in a prominent area...

[Larry Browning]

I'm thinking a nice area rug:D Always a smartellic in the crowd.

[Andrew Long]

From the grain, sure looks like Yellow Pine ("Heart Pine" or Southern Yellow Pine), which was very common for flooring. Looks to be the same width T&G (fairly narrow), so guessing less than 100 years old ...

Appears to have been stained or the finsihed has darkended considerably, which is what confuses eveyone on species of wood. That will be the hardest part to match, the T&G YP flooring is readily available, or least in my area.

Cutting the boards out and inserting replacements is the easy part, matching existing finish the difficult. Have you considered sanding them down and refinishing naturally? Yellow Pine floors are very nice finished naturally, and do not need stain to cover them up, although commonly done. :(

[Todd Burch]

Appears to be SYP or Fir. Probably finished with Boiled Linseed Oil and varnish. BLO will make Pine and Fir very dark after many years.

My approach would be to remove the strips that are cut and put in new strips. Unless you want to hire a professional (that knows what they are doing), or you hit the color match on your own, accept the fact that the replacement boards will not exactly match.

Todd