Help with old damaged T&G floor

[laura vianello]

Hello before I start the cabs, I need to understand if I need to replace/add a new floor or I can restore it. I love the old T&G floor but there are huge gaps between the planks, some pieces are broken or missing (max 10"x5"), there are holes due to an insulation job underneath (cellulose is coming out the gaps as well), etc. I would love to have a modern Plywood floor or keep the one I have finding matching pieces and restore it. While I can go about the first option, I do not know where to start with the second one. I have no idea what pine it is and how to treat a new pine to look like the old one. The house was built in 1939. Here the pictures, the rough floor is the actual attic floor. The last one is the plywood floor I will install if I cannot fix the existing one. I will add the ply to the existing floor (cross direction). Thanks for helping

[Ronald Mancini]

Reworking the 1939 floor will be very time consuming, and the reworked floor may not look the way you want it. Will the plywood floor stand up to the kitchen traffic, spills, etc.?

[laura vianello]

It is not a kitchen but an attic (office/storage), no shoes allowed. It is sad because everybody who saw the attic said that the floor is very nice. Rustic but nice. It does not have to be perfect but I was hoping I could identify the pine and try to antique it ;) thanks

[Jim Dwight]

Your best shot at keeping the existing floor would be to identify areas you could remove (storage? closet?) to use for patching. It is unlikely you could get new boards to look similar. My house is only 50 years old but it was originally a cabin with inside walls of T@G pine. They have been darkened by the sun where pictures were. I tried using some orange shellac on new boards but didn't get close. These were walls so there was no ground in dirt. Your floors have been darkened by the sun but also have ground in dirt affecting their appearance. Very difficult to duplicate.

[Jim Andrew]

What is the width of the flooring? You might find some used flooring that would match from a salvage company, or even at a jobsite where someone is removing an old building about the age of your house. I took down an old church a few years ago and used the t&g flooring in my shop.

[Brian Williamson]

I would guess that the original flooring is douglas fir (DF). My home is also from '39 and is done in DF and I was in a very similar position to you. I would up buying a few pieces of modern new DF floor and using a complicated finishing schedule to match the new wood to the old. It turned out well enough, but some of the color adjustments I did to the new wood were done via glazing over the finish as the floor was being done so scratches in the finish take off color. It's repairable, but time consuming.

[Ron Kurzius]

I had to replace some flooring in a home built in the '30's. I searched around and found someone that had old barn boards from a building built around the same time using local sourced wood just as the home was.

Obviously it looked "new" because the whole floor wasn't re finished but the grain and wood type were the same. These floors were varnished but I think given a little time they will not stand out at all.

[Bill Adamsen]

Agree with Brian, it looks like Douglas Fir. Assuming "cabs" means cabinets and that you plan to cover some if not a significant amount of the flooring with cabinets. That might give you enough salvaged material to replace any flooring that doesn't pass muster. That could mean individual piece removal and replacement or complete reshuffling. But removing the flooring, sorting it, re-milling, and reinstalling is a significant amount of work. And frankly that plywood floor in the last photo is also attractive ... at least from the distance of the photo. As others have said, replicating that finish will be a challenge.

[ryan paulsen]

You could always pull the floor, keep the wood, and use it for other projects...a feature wall might be a nice homage to the original wood for example.

[laura vianello]

What did you exactly do? I do not have much to replace, so I might give it a try. The worst part are the knot holes, some of them are 1.5 diameter.

[Pat Barry]

I like the plywood floor you picked out. What brand is it? Is this something you can get at HD? Lowes? Menards??

[Brian Williamson]

I wound up making a test panel of new wood and one of old wood. I developed a finishing schedule that gave me satisfactory results on both panels and the proceeded with the repair and finishing of the floor. I wound up pretreating the floor with a water wash, screening, 5% BLO in MS, a mix of TransTint dyes to get the color I wanted, 2 coats Waterlox, some GF gel stain to even out the color between old and new wood, 2 more coats Waterlox satin.

One could probably get away with only coloring the new wood, but my old wood was more yellow than I wanted so I decided to tint the whole thing.

[Adam Herman]

would love to see some pictures of it finished!

[laura vianello]

Well, if you google Plywood floors, you will find tons of picture. I used one of them to add the pic to my post. The choices are infinite. I have seen 1/4 maple plywood and sand pine underlayment ply in different projects. I actually used some underlayment (very well sanded by the factory) to try and I really like it but it was too thin for my project. You can check: http://centsationalgirl.com/2014/02/diy-plywood-plank-floors/#more-39345 and http://littlegreennotebook.com/2014/03/diy-wide-plank-floors-made-from-plywood.html/ as example. I have nothing to do with both websites. I hope it helps.
Laura

[laura vianello]

While I am familiar with GF (love them all), I do not know what "5% BLO in MS" means...BLO is Boiled Linseed Oil but what about the rest?...sorry I am a newbie. Thanks

[Pat Barry]

Well, if you google Plywood floors, you will find tons of picture. I used one of them to add the pic to my post. The choices are infinite. I have seen 1/4 maple plywood and sand pine underlayment ply in different projects. I actually used some underlayment (very well sanded by the factory) to try and I really like it but it was too thin for my project. You can check: http://centsationalgirl.com/2014/02/diy-plywood-plank-floors/#more-39345 and http://littlegreennotebook.com/2014/03/diy-wide-plank-floors-made-from-plywood.html/ as example. I have nothing to do with both websites. I hope it helps.
Laura
I don't think you'd really meant / want to use plywood. I thought your picture was of some engineered flooring - I liked the way it looked there but was wondering if it was clik-lok or tongue and groove floating etc.

[Brian Williamson]

You are right about the BLO, MS is mineral spirits.

Here is a pic i could grab of how the floor turned out.

351240

[Mel Fulks]

I'm sure the floor is not dangerous. Since this is a looks thing there are many fixes. What I would do is patch and seal where needed for quiet, safety, and temperature. Then cover some areas with "floor clothes", which are durable and thin enough to hug the floor and show the slightest undulations of the old boards. We have a floor cloth in our living room that has been in constant use for at least 35 years.

[Jeff Duncan]

There's a place in Cambridge called Longleaf that sells reclaimed wood and may possibly have something close enough. It's not inexpensive at all so whether or not it's worth it only you can decide.

In terms of practicality it looks in the pics like the original "flooring" which would have been sub-flooring on lower levels of the house, later covered with another wood. Sub floors are not the easiest in terms of cleaning and working with for an office, so I would really think about how it will be used and how practical it will be before moving forward.

good luck,
JeffD

[laura vianello]

Brian, This is way more than what I am hoping for. It is very beautiful! My floor is rustic but I kind of like it. The room will be a modern home office. The visible floor is about 12'x16'. I have some planks in the eaves that I can remove and replace with new (they will be hidden in the slopped cabs) and use the removed ones to patch and repair. It might be hard not to break them while pulling the nails. The other question is about the gaps. Some are about 3/8"-1/4" wide.

[Brian Williamson]

There were some spots of my floor that were more heavily damaged. I wound up filling those spots with epoxy (you can color that if desired), leveling it out with the surrounding floor, coating the epoxy with some dewaxed shellac, and then completing the finishing schedule over that.

In the below pic the rows of dots are round head nails that are driven beneath the surface of the floor. I put dots of epoxy there to help prevent splinters. I don't have any close ups handy or pics of other repairs. I could take some if it helps.

351432

[laura vianello]

I actually mean plywood. I saw it in one shop in Lincoln NH just yesterday and love it. It was a shop with tons of traffic but it looked very nice. Considering how cheap it is, it looks like a good option for me. If I cannot repair the floor I have I might try that path.

[Frank Pratt]

A plywood surface will quickly be destroyed by heavy traffic or especially the wheels on an office chair. Baltic birch, which has a thicker face veneer would stand up better than most.