plank floor info

[JO~*]

I have been sitting here trying to find pictures and info about putting in a cheap but not to "cheap looking"

: plank flooring in part of our house. Has anyone ever got plain old lumber at say Home Depot and laid it down as a plank floor then sealed it real good or something.

If anyone has done that, could you post a picture and give info like what kind of wood ect.

I'll check here in the morning to see if anyone has posted cause its cold in here sitting at the computer so I'm going to shut this thing down for the night. Brrrrrr nighty night.

 

[Marty]

Hold on Jo.........I have to take and upload a picture for you.......and my camera batteries are dead! This will take a while.

 

[Marty]

Has anyone ever got plain old lumber at say Home Depot and laid it down as a plank floor then sealed it real good or something.

Jo, we are in the floor business. That's what we do, ceramic tile and hardwood flooring and Jerry is the best in the business.

To answer your question, no no no no no. Well ok, I suppose depending on what kind of planks you get, but there would be all sorts of prep work to that and it would cost you a bundle. And the cost of refinishing would send you soaring if you just went out and bought ruff planking which I think is what you have in mind. We also refinish existing hardwood and most average rooms cost into the thousands to do.

Normally, Jerry has so much left over tile and wood from his jobs that he hauls it to the dump. And you'd think that when I needed my floor done this summer, he would have had some scraps left for us. Nope. And we sell very high quality stuff at our store that normally we'd get for cost. But no such luck this time. We had to do something immediately because of our circumstances, all the media and law people all the time coming here and frankly, my house STANK to high heavens because of our old smelly worn out, filthy dirty stained carpet had to be taken up. So we were under the gun to get something done in here fast and cheap.

This is the cheapest, easiest way to go. It's my piece of crap, cheapo engineered laminate flooring from Home Depot. It was marked down, the right color I wanted and the wider plank that I wanted so we grabbed it up real quick. It is nail down/glue down, but we didn't, because Jerry is remodeling the living room this spring before the roof caves in on us, and it will be taken up and put in Dan's room, so for now, it's floating. You just lay it down on top of your covering, and pop it into place with a rubber hammer and "snap" it into place. I said I would never have a floating floor because they are a cheap piece of crap, and yes they are, but I must admit that this is working out great and really is serving the purpose. We get a lot of very heavy traffic in this room, and the dogs running in and out and teens with muddy feet and I sweep it daily and damp mop it daily and it always looks very nice and clean. And it doesn't stink!

You do have to put down the white padding first. That is a must have for about every floating wood floor you will have, but it's simple to do. Some wood just requires tar paper but it still has a lot to do with what is on your sub-flooring first. Dan and Jerry did the whole thing in one day. But of course I was standing over them with a whip.

So anyhow, this is my cheap piece of crap imitation engineered make believe hardwood floor.

 

[Marty]

Ok so going a step further. Here's a little tutorial of mine for you.

Say you want to go buy some hardwood. That would come from a store like ours.

I do not believe that a Home Depot type store would handle any hardwood planking for flooring. There are a lot of discount type places such as "Lumber Liquidators" that handle it also, but you run a very high risk of getting twisted and warped, nasty bad wood from places like those. So to be sure, you should go to a quality flooring supply store.

First you need to get under the house with a moisture meter and be sure there is no moisture coming up from under the house that will cause your wood to pop up or warp. We won't touch a house that hasn't been mosture tested first. If the meter is reading moisture, that problem has to be solved first.

Back to the wood

You'd probably want oak. Red or white, not that much difference. Anyhow, it comes in grades.

The best would be Select ( also called #1) which has no knots (the most expensive)

Then the next lower would be #2 which has a few knots (less expensive)

And then you would have Cabin Grade which has lots of knots and veins. Cabin grade is your least expensive and a lot of people like that because some people feel it shows the integrity of the wood. Sells good here because there are so many log cabin type homes built. I like it because for an old mountain home like this it would look appropriate.

Then it has to sit in the house and acclumate for a little while. It will expand and shink a bit with the weather changes. Once it is down, it gets refinished and that means lots of sanding. We have a ton tied up in our sanding equipment. It's the best on the market and as we sand, it is sucked up so not that much dust, but some. If you rent the equipment, most likely it's crappy cheap equipment and you run a good chance of making "digs" in your wood with it, wrecking it. After the refinishing, then there is the stain or color you choose and you must evacuate the house because the smell will get you sick usually, if the stuff is of good high quality. And then afterwards the poly.....we usually use three coats. One coat a day as long as it's drying nicely in a day's time, we can add another the following day.

And that is what it takes to put down a ruff floor if you go with real hardwood.

There you go!

I'm pretty good at this huh?

I'm so good that is why the store is named after me too! hehe

Here's our store sign

 

[Jill]

We had wood laminate flooring put down in our kitchen about 18mos ago. We have hardwood floors in the rest of the house. If I remember right, the laminate flooring was not very expensive and it looks so nice! I think many people are able to install it themselves and that Home Depot might even do "seminars" for customers to teach them how. I've been very happy with it.

 

[ChrystalPaths]

This I know about too. When we were finishing the upstairs in the cabin we had miles of space to fill and I didn't want laminate or hardwood flooring becuase this is a jhand made old fashioned very flwed log cabin but I love it. I chose wide (9'to15") pine plank boards; sanded on one side for my flooring. "I" love it, but it does dent or mark being soft wood but I think it gives character to the whole room and it glows thos deep honey color when cleaned.

Here is a pic of the getting started in Shain's room.

Living room:

Kitchen:

It cost us less than $900 for all the wood and we had leftover and did the installing ourselves and polyed it with waterbase to cut back on the smell. Good luck.

 

[HobbsFarm]

[SIZE=12pt]With the real hardwood and even prefinished, it can and does get scratched and dented, which is something to be considered if you have big dogs, small children and/or high traffic areas in your house. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]I put a higher end lamitnated flooring in our new house a few years ago and loved it. It was the floating wide planked flooring like Marty has a picture of. Everything in our house was built to look old so we went with a darker pine that had an old look to it and almost a matte finish. It was SO durable and we installed it ourselves. I will see if I can find a picture and scan, upload, edit this post, etc...lol When we build our next house, I will more than likely go with the laminated flooring again only because it fits our lifestyle better than real hardwoods! Good luck with your decision! Shannon[/SIZE]

 

[minisaremighty]

This I know about too. When we were finishing the upstairs in the cabin we had miles of space to fill and I didn't want laminate or hardwood flooring becuase this is a jhand made old fashioned very flwed log cabin but I love it. I chose wide (9'to15") pine plank boards; sanded on one side for my flooring. "I" love it, but it does dent or mark being soft wood but I think it gives character to the whole room and it glows thos deep honey color when cleaned.

Question for you Debs! :saludando: Did the boards just fit tightly together and not leave any gaps? Also, how did you attach it? Nails? Glue? ??

This is the type of flooring we'd like to do. We have knotty pine ceilings and love the look of pine. I also love the dents it gets it in. A totally smooth floor doesn't appeal to me nearly as much. Your room looks beautiful!!

:

 

[ChrystalPaths]

It has to be installed using a triangle piece of wood to squeeze it tight together..I'll see if I can find a Pic of how he did that too. Yes there are some gaps but quite small most of the boards went together nicely when squeezed. I do love how it looks now. I have dogs and a grandson and roller chairs so there are marks and dings but it has that rustic Abe Lincoln feel to it and I like that.

OK..look at the first pic...see the piece that is butted up against the board? it is screwed into the subfloor and he squeezed it tight then attached the floor board moving the squeeze as he went along. WE used brite brass screws to put the boards down.

 

[minisaremighty]

It has to be installed using a triangle piece of wood to squeeze it tight together..I'll see if I can find a Pic of how he did that too. Yes there are some gaps but quite small most of the boards went together nicely when squeezed. I do love how it looks now. I have dogs and a grandson and roller chairs so there are marks and dings but it has that rustic Abe Lincoln feel to it and I like that.

OK..look at the first pic...see the piece that is butted up against the board? it is screwed into the subfloor and he squeezed it tight then attached the floor board moving the squeeze as he went along. WE used brite brass screws to put the boards down.

Ah! OK, now I see the screws! Do you like the look of the screws? I've recently seen a handmade floor done with very dark planks and then where the screws were put in, there was a natural wood plug covering them. It was very interesting looking, yet the screws were covered. Of course, if I did that the wood would all be natural one color.

Our room is very rustic. We are going for the old west with a touch of the southwest look.

 

[ChrystalPaths]

Well I had planned on filling the screw holes with plugs bit it has been a year and I haven't yet. They don't look bad really, shiney brass....maybe someday I'll get aroundtoit!

 

[JO~*]

Oh wow thanks for the info you guys!!

Marty on your laminate floor you said it was the cheap stuff?? Ah, it don't look cheap to me, it looks real nice.

When Home Depot first opened here (this year) they had some laminate for as low as .97 cents (hey my keyboard don't have a cent key) a foot. It looked like a plank. They also had something of oak that looked more like a parque ,sp? for the same price. What do you think of Home Depots stuff that cheap? I was afraid it wouldnt hold up what do you think?

We have one teen girls and not much traffic in the house--we are recluse :lol: and have very frw people that come over.

Debs yours looks great to, I like it alot, what kind of pine is that?

 

[paintnthings]

I too am looking at putting in a floor like Dimimore's and my husband and I are leaning toward using car board siding. That is like the old barns used to be made out of. If you turn it over it is flat, and my husband likes the fact that it is tongue and groove to keep warping down. I also was planning on using the bright screws and leaving the heads in full view. Thanks Dimi, for giving me a "glimpse into my future plans" if looks fab!!!

Teresa

 

[ChrystalPaths]

White pine.

 

[Pepipony]

I just put in an Armstrong floating laminate floor in my den/kitchen. Took me 2 days, it does snap together, but not as easy as they proclaim LOL A friend has the same in her kitchen , think 5 years now, and its held up perfectly. If you shop Lowes/Home Depot you can say you are pricing out the others and can they give you a discount

: I got a 15% at Lowes :bgrin I was also redoing those 2 rooms, only thing that stayed were the cabinets and appliances, everything else went. So Lowes kept giving me at least a 10% discount to keep me coming back.

We had hardwood floors in CT and the upkeep was yearly. Sanding then finishing, it got old. Bet Marty covered this, but if you get engineered you can only get one refinish out of it.