Wide Plank Flooring Recommendation Needed
We are in the process of renovating our home which has the old pine wide plank floors in the parlor and third floors. Our contractor is recommending removing them and putting in a subfloor. Problem is that he would like to then get rid of the wide plank flooring while we’d like to put it…
We are in the process of renovating our home which has the old pine wide plank floors in the parlor and third floors. Our contractor is recommending removing them and putting in a subfloor. Problem is that he would like to then get rid of the wide plank flooring while we’d like to put it back over the subfloor. He said to expect a 50% loss of the planks during removal. I’m afraid he doesn’t have much experience with this type of flooring. Can anyone provide any recommendation of floor companies that have worked with these types of floors? Really don’t want to loose the wide plank floors. Thanks
We did a whole house reno and got old wide-board flooring (reclaimed) from Steve at Historic Flooring. They’re in TN, but very reasonable prices even with the shipping –much less expensive than anything local and it was nice to use something old in an old house. They look amazing and Steve was super helpful, mailed us possible samples, etc. Maybe they can get you something to come close to the originals to mix in. What a shame to lose the old planks!
I can’t recommend them enough. http://www.historicflooring.com
greenwoodgeneral: Our contractor, M & S Construction (646-436-4705) subbed the floors out and I don’t know who it was. We used polyurathane on the subfloors, but we used another product called Osmo Polyx Oil on some other oak flooring and it’s beautiful. I regret not using it on the subfloor. It has a totally natural wood look (very low luster), but very protective as it seeps into the wood like tung oil. We didn’t fill the gaps. It doesn’t bother me.
Robert Duffy (president of Marc Jacobs) also has wide plank floors in his West Village house. He had them hand sanded and covered with tung oil or something like that, not poly. I don’t think he covered the cracks. If you check the book “Restoring a House in the City,” it mentions the firm he worked with and I believe gives several recommendations for high end floor refinishers in the city who do this kind of work.
P.S. Our floors are just cheap late-Victorian subfloors, not wide plank flooring, which is something special.
Why do you need to put a subfloor over the old pine plank floor? Just use it as is.
Here’s a photo of some wide plank floors. They are beautiful and historic.
http://www.katyelliott.com/blog/2009/11/red-and-white-wallpaper-in-old-house.html
We have a pine subfloor throughout our house and we refinished it and use it as the regular floor.
I would recommend refinishing during the summer months, when the wood swells, and putting sawdust between the cracks, then covering with poly. But you don’t have to fill the cracks at all if you don’t want to.
I would not use a stain. You might use a sealer – I’m not sure about that, ask your floor refinisher. I would stick with four coats of satin poly, which is definitely durable enough for the parlor and third floors (maybe not in a kitchen). Semigloss will deepen the color — that might not be a good thing with pine.
Carlos here from Inti Renovation (Inti Interior Finish). This job needs to be done carefully and with patience otherwise you will get severe damage to the exiting pine planks. Especially if the condition of the planks are weak in some areas. I would be happy to come out to view your project and give you an estimate.
Carlos Salazar
(347) 746-8439
http://www.intirenovation.com
carlos@intirenovation.com
View our most recent projects:
http://picasaweb.google.com/intiinteriorfinish
We took up our wide plank and put plywood underneath, then reinstalled it. It may be fine to just leave it, but my husband is anal that way. Plus if your floors need leveling, it’s a good time to do it.
You WILL lose a lot of it. 50%? Possibly. The problem is that no matter how careful you are pulling it up, once a tongue or groove gets damaged, that part of the piece is no good unless you want to face nail a bunch of them.
We pulled up the planks, scraped and installed them ourselves with the help of a contractor whom I always use, but don’t like to give his name out on this blog because he’s slow and unlicensed. He knows his restoration stuff though and he can be trusted. Email me if you want his info.
Desmond Harmon is the floor finishing guy I recommend. Don’t have his # right now, but you’ll find it in the archives. He does installations too, so you can see what he says.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/castleandkeep/297749283/in/set-72157594378041657/
There’s a before photo in the set too.
Suan Elkins-
Who did you get to finish you ‘subfloor as regular floor’?
Ours is needing a go over and repair in some places. Our last contractor experience with this was not good.
Also – do you have gaps? Did you use filler or rope? Or did you just poly over the the gaps?
We use our subfloor as our regular floor and it’s just fine. We didn’t remove it, just sanded and finished. It’s not uncommon.