Oh, thank the good Lord, the last coat of poly goes on today!

Jstas

On the floors that is.

An entire month of sanding, counter-sinking nail heads, filling holes and replacing cracked boards on 1200+ square feet of hard wood floors is OVER!. Last coat of polyurethane goes on today and then it has to cure the rest of the weekend. I'll go check it on Sunday and I should be able to put furniture on it by Wednesday.

The floor looks absolutely gorgeous! It's the original floor in the house so the patchwork look of the different boards adds a character that you don't see in the faker floors you see today. I'm quite pleased with how it came out. The boards are, for the most part, white oak but there is red oak mixed in. There are some boards that I thought were just real rough but when sanded, they stayed dark, like walnut and some of them have a nice burled grain pattern. I really like it!

I can't wait for all the people who told me I was wasting my time doing all the prep work "because the sander will take it all off". This floor is about 55 years old and looks brand new because of all the "unnecessary" effort I did.

everpress

I'm guessing you'll have pics before the furniture? I love wood flooring.

treitz3

Pic's or it didn't happen.

John30_30

Tres cool. You'll get all kinds of grades of color in so-called "white" oak. Seeing as you say it's at least 55 years old, the overall quality will be superior to what's available today, seeing as they still were cutting some wonderful old-growth forests for lumber.

On that note, I saw an 'old-timer' about 20 years ago in a lumberyard bitching about the poor quality of walnut available compared to the "old days"( his term); that there were commonly 12" boards available back then.
A salesman told him without blinking that there's hardly any more commercially available "because you old **** cut them all!"

Kex

Good for you Jstas!

Our house is 55 years old too, and we have mostly oak throughout. We got lucky, though, since the realtor had the owners redo all the floors before the sale to us (just last year). I think they had carpet throughout when they were still living here. Ours look pretty much brand new too. It's actually almost disappointing that they don't have more "character", as you describe it, so yours sound a bit more interesting.

Jstas

Yeah, I had carpet too. I spent a good deal of time pulling staples, tacks and gnarled nails out of the flooring. I filled many of the holes and anything that wasn't split real bad I left because it adds to the old, weathered and worn look. Granted, the house was built in the mid 50's but they were still building houses the "old" way back then but using new materials. So it looks old but it doesn't look old.

Next step is painting. I have to do some clean up to the walls in spots but nothing major. The big wall repair job was in the room with the paneling. But that is currently naked drywall with joint compound. Just gotta primer that and sand some high spots down in other places. Then I get to go buy paint.

I know, shoulda painted before the floors got done but the floors were keeping me from moving in. Painting won't. Just gotta take extra precautions. That's all.



And yeah, walnut would be awesome but it's crazy expensive, mostly because it doesn't grow real fast so you don't get big board widths. The only other American hardwood more expensive is chestnut but that's because of blight caused by fungus from Asia. It's a shame too because chesnut has the tight grain of oak but the meandering patterns like maple and it's a gorgeous golden brown color with a very high contrasting grain. The chestnuts from Asia aren't nearly as nice as the American stuff. I wish we could figure out how to stop blight or at least genetically engineer chestnuts to resist blight because the American chestnut is a beautiful tree that grows fast and strong. They used to be everywhere, all over the place in the Northeast here, but blight has killed them off. You can still find unadulterated stands in places, I saw a stand in Ohio on my way to Michigan one year and it's protected and monitored constantly. I wish I had a camera to take some pictures at the time but batteries were dead. They are beautiful trees and at 75 feet tall, quite majestic in appearance. Especially when you can find a large stand of them like what's up in Vermont/New Hampshire areas and Michigan.

Walnut, thankfully isn't as susceptible to diseases and flourishes here covering at least 50% of North America in it's range. But walnut, while tall at 130+ feet for full mature trees, often has a short, squat trunk and many off-shoots for branches. So finding a tree tall and old enough in the right conditions to force a tall trunk and get the large boards out of it is difficult. That's why it's expensive and used for a decorative wood. The grain quality is quite poor for construction due to knots and burled grain patterns. But those same grains that make for uneven strength in the milled lumber makes for beautiful finishes on decorative trim, furniture, flooring and such. Walnut is very dense as well so it is less likely to dent or knick than some other hardwoods and holds nice, sharp, crisp edges that is a hallmark of fine, finished furniture. It's also unforgiving in that respect because it can show where a woodworker's experience level can let him/her down. It's not an easy or cheap wood to work with but if you get it right, the results are outstanding!

BTW, walnut is related to hickory and in the same family of trees. Chestnut is related to beech and in the same family which also includes oaks. Ash, which alot of people think are related to oaks because of similar wood structure actually aren't. They are related to olives and lilacs.

Way more info than you wanted to know about trees, I know, but the stuff interests me. There is a simple yet complex beauty to stuff made from wood and if we want to keep getting that same kind of wood products, we need to know about the trees they come from so we can preserve the source for time to come.

amulford

My floors are 60 years old, too. Downstairs is white oak with black walnut accents. Upstairs is southern yellow heart pine. Nice stuff.

Good for you, Stas. Get yourself some runners to paint with, and be careful...

Kex

Jstas wrote: »

... Way more info than you wanted to know about trees, I know, but the stuff interests me. ...

Wow! Who knew? The cars, yes? But it's cars AND wood, it seems. Actually, it's not that surprising: the mechanic who works on our truck (and says it's in the best mechanical condition of any pre-1995 Chevrolet C/K series he's ever seen) spends some of his spare time finding and polishing local stone.

Jstas wrote: »

... There is a simple yet complex beauty to stuff made from wood and if we want to keep getting that same kind of wood products, we need to know about the trees they come from so we can preserve the source for time to come.

Pine used to be considered junk, but these days, anything at all with solid wood is a premium product. Lot's of very pricey furniture is just veneer ... basically IKEA type construction with a slightly nicer finish and five times the price.

Would you believe that in France, where they need oak for wine barrels, they use trees that are 150 years old for the barrels? It has been managed with such precision that they actually cut fewer trees for the manufacture of wine barrels than they grow! That always amazes me. The wood for the barrels is even left to "weather" the old-fashioned way, outdoors, for three or four years. I don't think there's any hope we'll ever get back to that standard of management and craftsmanship for furniture though.

Jstas

amulford wrote: »

My floors are 60 years old, too. Downstairs is white oak with black walnut accents. Upstairs is southern yellow heart pine. Nice stuff.

Good for you, Stas. Get yourself some runners to paint with, and be careful...

Most definitely. I have stacks of canvas and nylon tarps as well as polyethylene sheets and old bed sheets for protecting the finishs. I also have that closed cell rubber foam matting they use for "anti-stress floors" behind parts counters where people stand all day. They will keep high traffic areas from getting messed up until all the finish work is done. Keeps dropped tools from marring the floor too.

I'm not a messy painter, I hate getting it everywhere. I tape lines for everything and I remove all fixtures. It's the right way to do it otherwise it looks like hell when you have two contrasting colors and can't seem to paint a straight line.

I learned long ago, it's all in the details and most of those details are in the prep work. Good prep work not only makes the job go smoothly and quicker but it also produces a much, much better result. Painting a wall is just like painting a car. Thee prep work is the most important and as long as you are using quality paints, the painting is probably the part you should worry about the least, IF you did your prep work properly.

Jstas

Kex wrote: »

Wow! Who knew? The cars, yes? But it's cars AND wood, it seems. Actually, it's not that surprising: the mechanic who works on our truck (and says it's in the best mechanical condition of any pre-1995 Chevrolet C/K series he's ever seen) spends some of his spare time finding and polishing local stone.

Pine used to be considered junk, but these days, anything at all with solid wood is a premium product. Lot's of very pricey furniture is just veneer ... basically IKEA type construction with a slightly nicer finish and five times the price.

Would you believe that in France, where they need oak for wine barrels, they use trees that are 150 years old for the barrels? It has been managed with such precision that they actually cut fewer trees for the manufacture of wine barrels than they grow! That always amazes me. The wood for the barrels is even left to "weather" the old-fashioned way, outdoors, for three or four years. I don't think there's any hope we'll ever get back to that standard of management and craftsmanship for furniture though.

I think we will. Not very soon but eventually. The U.S. Forestry Service is extremely stringent on the rules and most, not all but most of the logging companies in operation understand that they have to preserve their futures by replanting trees. You don't see it on the shows but when they clear cut a slope, the next spring, they have a team of people who go and replant that slope so in 20 years, there will be mature trees to harvest again.

But as far as barrels go, U.S. whiskey distillers use white oak barrels. White Oak is extremely prevalent here in North America. It's everywhere. There are two white oaks in my backyard! But they use those barrels for one batch. Then they are dismantled and sold. The scotch whiskey distillers in Scotland buy those oak barrels, reassemble them use them for as many as 6 more batches of scotch. At that point, they are spent and then used by other companies to make the charcoal that is used for filtering other spirits. The Scots don't buy new white oak barrels because they say that the quality of the white oak from the U.S. is so good even after aging the American and Canadian whiskeys that they have no need to source their own unless supplies of used stuff runs low. Also, some barrels in rotation were built 60 years ago. After aging a U.S. whiskey for what, 2-5 years, if they are used for 7 year old scotch, 3 or 4 more times, that's 33 years. Make it a 12 year old scotch, we'll say 3 times, that's 41-42 years old. So you can see how old some of the barrels get.

I remember watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel about distilleries. They had two episodes. But it was neat to see things like a Scottish distillery aging scotch for a Scottish company with barrels branded from Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee and dated new from the 40's and 50's. A side effect of that is that any scotch company that uses used white oak barrels for aging owes a small bit of it's flavor and body to American Tennessee Whiskeys and Kentucky Bourbons! You'd think that was something they would be displeased with but many of the distillers are happy and proud of that! They only buy used barrels from specific distillers in the States because of the certain flavors that specific distillers barrels impart to the scotch.


Oh and my dad is the woodworker. He's extremely good at it. Like Norm Abrams good at it. I can do construction and I can build stuff but I don't have the skills or tools to do the work that my father can do. I learned all about the trees and stuff because, like I said, I see the beauty of the wood and how it adds to the quality of something built from it. It's man, bending nature and it takes what is already naturally beautiful and turns it in to something exquisite. I wanted to know where it comes from so I started learning about it. I don't know everything but I know where to go find references. It's almost sad though. I'll go to an art gallery and I'm more interested in the frame than the actual painting!

zombie boy 2000

I made the mistake of attempting to finish eighty year old hickory floors. I might as well have been attempting to sand concrete. What a nightmare...

John30_30

Jstas wrote: »

And yeah, walnut would be awesome but it's crazy expensive, mostly because it doesn't grow real fast so you don't get big board widths. The only other American hardwood more expensive is chestnut but that's because of blight caused by fungus from Asia. It's a shame too because chesnut has the tight grain of oak but the meandering patterns like maple and it's a gorgeous golden brown color with a very high contrasting grain. The chestnuts from Asia aren't nearly as nice as the American stuff. I wish we could figure out how to stop blight or at least genetically engineer chestnuts to resist blight because the American chestnut is a beautiful tree that grows fast and strong. They used to be everywhere, all over the place in the Northeast here, but blight has killed them off. You can still find unadulterated stands in places, I saw a stand in Ohio on my way to Michigan one year and it's protected and monitored constantly.

Walnut, thankfully isn't as susceptible to diseases and flourishes here covering at least 50% of North America in it's range. But walnut, while tall at 130+ feet for full mature trees, often has a short, squat trunk and many off-shoots for branches. So finding a tree tall and old enough in the right conditions to force a tall trunk and get the large boards out of it is difficult. That's why it's expensive and used for a decorative wood. The grain quality is quite poor for construction due to knots and burled grain patterns. But those same grains that make for uneven strength in the milled lumber makes for beautiful finishes on decorative trim, furniture, flooring and such. Walnut is very dense as well so it is less likely to dent or knick than some other hardwoods and holds nice, sharp, crisp edges that is a hallmark of fine, finished furniture. It's also unforgiving in that respect because it can show where a woodworker's experience level can let him/her down. It's not an easy or cheap wood to work with but if you get it right, the results are outstanding!

BTW, walnut is related to hickory and in the same family of trees. Chestnut is related to beech and in the same family which also includes oaks. Ash, which alot of people think are related to oaks because of similar wood structure actually aren't. They are related to olives and lilacs.

Way more info than you wanted to know about trees, I know, but the stuff interests me. There is a simple yet complex beauty to stuff made from wood and if we want to keep getting that same kind of wood products, we need to know about the trees they come from so we can preserve the source for time to come.

Warning: More Friday tree trivia:
I thought the chestnut blight came from Europe, but whatever the source, the idjuts back when it appeared started clear-cutting them because they figured all those trees were doomed anyhow. That was a major bonehead move in retrospect because there will be a few trees percentage-wise that are naturally resistant, and those could be propagated to replenish this amazing tree...if they hadn't been already harvested.
I totally agree, btw that American chestnut is one of the royalty trees, and far superior to Asian.

Northern ( not soft Southern) hard-rock maple is another awesome species, the grain is tight and beautiful.
It's what's used in butcher-block, and unfortunately, also in bowling alleys. I say unfortunate because in the '80's, the Japanese got crazy about bowling, and started building hundreds of lanes, importing the only wood deemed right for that- yep, you guessed it. And a huge portion of old-growth U.S. Northern maple went to the mills, then overseas, and the price skyrocketed for the remaining supply.

As for walnut, yes, it's in the same family as hickory and pecan- and they can be grafted onto each other easily. Hickory and pecan grade as identical by lumberyards, they're that similar.
That's kind of a back-burner project for me to get some graft branches of edible nut-bearing walnut, since we've got 2 15-year old trees, but big; that dump a couple hundred pounds of wild walnuts every year- squirrels won't even fool with them.

Jstas

zombie boy 2000 wrote: »

I made the mistake of attempting to finish eighty year old hickory floors. I might as well have been attempting to sand concrete. What a nightmare...

Yeah but that would be gorgeous once you were done with it! I think I'd get a floor like that professionally done though.

zombie boy 2000

I finished about 3/4th's and did just that. Once the professionals had polished up what I had started, the floors looked amazing. Naturally reddish and very rustic.

When are we getting some pics? Or did you already address that?

Jstas

Pics when I can stand in the house without getting woozie from the fumes.

zombie boy 2000

Oh, come on. That's half the fun.

danger boy

I bet they look incredible.. you just can't get that kiind of character in today's wood flooring.. congrats.

I have fir wood flooring in my house.... which trust me is not a hardwood at all.. it scuffs and dents and scratches so easily. once refinished it's quite good looking. but no where near as good looking at oak or other woods.

bikezappa

I also love to work with wood floors and decks. My favorite wood for decks is mahogany with a clear stain. After sanding and staining it's like the wood is alive. I started a handy man business for a few years and restored many decks made with pine. That wood is not stable for out doors. I could never convince a customer to replacejust the top rails of the pressure treated pine decks with mahogany. In two years the top pine rails looked like **** with splitting and bowing.

I also did much painting and may suggest that you consider getting real paint drop cloths. They are nice in that they stay in place not like sheets which can be slippery and they can save your life. One day I knocked over a gallon of paint but was able to lift up the drop cloth and no paint went through on to the floor. Amazing and they last forever.

Jstas

zombie boy 2000 wrote: »

Oh, come on. That's half the fun.

Makes for blurry pictures though, even with a tripod.

Jstas

Lasareath wrote: »

No before pics?

No, there wasn't much to look at. My grandparents had carpet replaced when they moved in 22 years ago and the guys left the old padding down and put new stuff down on top of it. It was a myriad of stuck foam, stains and scuffs and looked like a dog had urinated all over the carpet and nobody cleaned it up. You could barely tell it was hardwood and not a planked subfloor.

exalted512

Jstas wrote: »

No, there wasn't much to look at. My grandparents had carpet replaced when they moved in 22 years ago and the guys left the old padding down and put new stuff down on top of it. It was a myriad of stuck foam, stains and scuffs and looked like a dog had urinated all over the carpet and nobody cleaned it up. You could barely tell it was hardwood and not a planked subfloor.

But that's the beauty of doing a project!...before and after pics.

I'm in the process of purchasing a house right now, but its new so we're not going to have to do any renovations. Which is kind of nice at this stage in life since I'm so busy already, but at the same time, I'm a hands-on guy. I love working on stuff like that. I'm hoping in a few years we will have enough capital (and time) to tackle an old house project.

get those pics up!
-Cody