using wood subfloors as primary floor
Your boards are the exact age of mine, and from the little of the grain I can see in your pictures, they look similar to mine. I do not know if they are the same pine, but if they are like mine (mine are much softer than oak floors I’ve had previously, and have a slightly yellowish cast, being unstained with just some sort of clear sealer on them, I don’t know what, but it feels different than they poly I’ve had on previous oak floors), they are absolutely gorgeous when finished without stain. Before you make your decision, sand an area down and have someone apply sealer – you may be amazed at what you see. Everybody who walks in comments on the beauty of my floors!
brokelin
in Flooring 12 years and 8 months ago
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9 replies
bk_homeslice | 12 years and 8 months ago
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/503815c348f17-.jpg
Hey, We are in the beginning stages of renovating our 2 family home and was hoping to use the wood subfloor which was covered by linoleum as our primary flooring after we refinished them. We really like the look and character that these floor have, but I do hear that it may be safer to lay down new floors. The floors are pretty solid with very few squeeky parts. Please see pictures below. What are everyone’s thoughts/experiences on using the wood subfloors as their primary floor?
bk_homeslice | 12 years and 8 months ago
Putnamdenizen | 12 years and 8 months ago
We took our subfloor up, laid plywood and put it back down. Looks good.
stevecym | 12 years and 8 months ago
I cannot say for certain and I would have to take a look at other elements of your house to know for sure, but that may not be subfloor. Some houses had pine as finished floor. Usually when we encounter 100 plus year old sub floor it does not look like what you have shown in the pics; the edges are not as square and the wood is not as tight and straight. what year was the house built and what area is it in and maybe I can take a better guess. We have seen sub and finished floors all through Brooklyn and recently did a lot of work on an old finished pine floor just like yours to make it usable once again after it too had layers of tile on it. Steve http://brownstoner.staging.wpengine.com/tinkerswagon
eman134 | 12 years and 8 months ago
on my parlor floor I left the pine subfloor intact, but glued up 3/4 plywood underneath in the basement…I sistered upthe plywood with 2×4’s on the joists for additional support…
NeoGrec | 12 years and 8 months ago
Putnamdenizen has it right. That’s exactly what we did. Makes the floor very solid, and increases the sound proofing btw floors.
cate | 12 years and 8 months ago
We refinished our pine floors and they look absolutely beautiful. This is the case even though they are full of wear and damage, and we made lots of mistakes with the type of poly and oversanding. I definitely recommend it. Even though originally these pine floors were probably intended to be covered by wall-to-wall carpet, they look beautiful. The biggest drawback of pine floors is that they will dent if you even so much as look at them. We used four layers of high-quality satin poly, and three years later, it still looks like new. Don’t panic if you get to the second or third layer and your floors still look naked, it will all come out perfect once the fourth layer is applied. Especially if you use a stain, it is very important to use highly experienced professionals for this job. Pine takes stain unevenly and unpredictably, so it’s important to go with somebody with a lot of experience and skill. Also, you know that fake wood filler the floor guys use between every board? I would skip it except for filling actual holes. It just looks stupid and it cracks after only about six months anyway, so it’s kind of pointless — unless for some reason you have huge gaps between your boards, which is unlikely. I thought our boards were laid directly on the joists below, but recently realized actually there is some kind of layer of paper or something down there, which is convenient if you drop a tiny object or to keep the mice at bay. Re the denting, we have rugs under every and all furniture, especially chairs. We don’t throw ourselves into the chairs, and we don’t race around in five-inch spike heels. If we are having work done, we put down pink paper, and sometimes masonite. So far, so good. All the damage we see was created before the refinishing. Good luck!
bk_homeslice | 12 years and 8 months ago
Thanks for the comments. Removing the subfloor to put a new subfloor underneath sounds like a big undertaking. This sounds like a last resort for us and if we must go this route then we may choose to lay down new floors. The house was built in 1910 and is located in the greenpoint section of brooklyn. Cate – these were your pine subfloors? are the floor squeeky?
brokelin | 12 years and 8 months ago
I’m curious what you mean by “safer” – it is just squeaks you are worried about, or do you have other concerns? You say you have few squeaky parts – so it seems you would know how many areas you have that would squeak. There are some ways, I’ve read, to address squeaky floorboards – people have squeaky floors even when they aren’t subfloors sometimes – it would seem to me that squeaks can be caused by the underneath boards, even with floorboards above, which would need to be addressed to stop squeaks – I’m not sure that laying new floorboards on top would stop all squeaks. I have 100 year old pine floors now – they look gorgeous – have no idea if they were originally subfloor or not (they were refinished by a previous occupant) – I suspect not – though I suspect they were designed to be covered with carpeting originally. They look great, but do dent if I drop anything accidentally, and have some areas where putty was filled in between boards and has cracked, and some smaller cracks where there is no filler. If I were to renovate this place, would I lay down new floors? No way – as imperfect as they are, they are gorgeous, and are part of the history of the place – they look right here. I can’t think of any kind of floorboard I could lay down that would look better than the original here – and that includes new boards, or reclaimed boards. Anything else would change the look of the floors, which I love. And anything else would look like it was newly added, out of place, like those renovated places where all the wood trim has been pulled out and the windowsills sheetrocked and brand new floorboards plunked down, with no character, when it is obvious that the building had character and that a more restoration minded renovation could possibly have been done. (And that kind of renovation would reduce the value of my home.) I’d likely just sand to even out some of the dents and scrapes, have someone fill the larger cracks with pine board slivers rather than putty – I don’t know if there is anything to do about the smaller spaces between floorboard, but I’d investigate options – and I’d then refinish, and then baby my newly refinished floors. Your floors look great in those pictures – I’m sure I’d just refinish them. If there were squeaks in places that bothered me (most of my flooors have rugs covering the majority of the space, so squeaks beneath the rugs and padding are muffled), I’d ask the experienced floor guys what they could do to address those areas. If it is subfloor and their answer was to take it up and put down plywood and reinstall, I can’t see why that wouldn’t be far preferable to buying and installing new wood flooring – you have the original flooring that came with the house, after all, and it is in good condition. And I would find out whether it is subfloor or not. It is possible if it is not subfloor that you could have squeaky boards fixed relatively easily. I would only put in a new floor if I were attempting to do one of those renovations where everything looked new and modern and in sharp contrast to the old building it was in – and I would never do one of those renovations unless everything inside was really totally trashed already, and your floorboards are not. You will keep far more of the value of your house if you keep what is there already.