
![]() After purchasing our “little” project the first step was to deal with the termite damage! Our little jewel is totally wood, inside and out. Ugh. When we bought the house I knew there was damage, but like most projects, the more you rip out, the worse it gets! I was on a very tight budget, so I feel very blessed to have found two super talented fellows that came every weekend for a year to work on the house. I will never forget the Saturday that they called me at work to let me know that it was “worse than they thought”. The kitchen floor was so rotten that it just started falling out when they started jacking up the house to replace the floor joist. There were three layers of rotten floor, many years of just covering up the problem The next major problem was a rotten wall in the kitchen. When we first looked at the house I wondered why one wall had the ugly 70's paneling. Surprise! It was hiding a wall that was half eaten by termites! This wall was one I had wished I could remove but didn’t want to go to the expense. Guess what? We took out the wall! One positive outcome to the termite damage: a beautiful open kitchen space. The next problem to solve was finding an inexpensive flooring option for the kitchen, dining and living area. I really wanted the look of an old farm house wooden floor but of course could not afford tongue and groove. I decided to use 1 x 8 boards for the flooring, even though I was strongly encouraged not to by my local hardware store and my weekend warriors. I decided to go with my gut (I am known to be a bit stubborn) and ordered all the wood from my local hardware store. I must say that these floors turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the house. This is a good lesson in why it is sometimes good to go with your gut and not listen to those that say “it can’t be done”! Kyle, one of my weekend warriors, did a beautiful job installing the boards for me. I spent about $500.00 on materials and even had enough to put in the bathroom. I think it turned out absolutely perfect! Since then, my guys admitted that it turned out much better than they thought it would. The fellas from the hardware store have been over to check out my progress and also admit that the floor looks great, despite their initial concerns. My little inexpensive flooring project has caused quite a stir! With a little sanding (o.k. maybe a lot of sanding), some stain, and help from good friends, my inexpensive floors are quite a masterpiece!
9 Comments
Deborah Moorman
4/8/2015 10:26:05 am
Wow! Good job!
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Karel
4/8/2015 12:04:53 pm
Love them!
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Amelia
4/8/2015 06:45:48 pm
Love the floors!!
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Melanie
5/4/2016 10:41:53 pm
Hi, i was wondering if you could tell me how they laid down the flooring exactly. How is it secured? Im curious because i need a cheaper option as well and i love how yours turned out they look amazing.
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Hi Melanie! Thanks for asking about the floors! I had to rip out the original flooring completely, including floor joist, due to termite damage. After replacing the joist, we laid two layers of plywood as the sub floor. The 1 x 8's were laid directly on top of that. I did pay a guy, who is a very good wood worker, to lay the boards for me. He took great care to use tools to make sure he wedged the boards in as closely as possible to each other so I wouldn't have really large gaps. The boards were secured with a nail gun. I did the sanding and staining myself. This was my first real stain job so it is definitely not perfect. You can see that I got better as we moved along! Haha. I love my floors and have only one regret. I was in a hurry to move in and just hastily put down two coats of poly on the floors. You are really supposed to put a coat of poly and then sand again and then put another coat of poly. The floors have scratched easily but I really think the scratch is in the poly, not the wood. So if I had it to do over, I would just take a little more time in the finishing. Other than that, I LOVE THEM! If you decide to give it a try, I hope you'll let me know how it turns out! Thanks for reading! Roxie
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Holly
5/9/2016 12:16:48 am
I wonder if the scratches in the flooring are why they just waxed the Wood on old wood floors? I know it's obviously all they had at one point, but I wonder if we haven't lost sight of something??
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Hey Holly! I am so sorry for the very delayed response! I am so bad to check comments. I think you are right, my mom's hardwoods are very old and have never been coated or sealed. Hers don't have all of the tiny scratches that my mine have. I think most of mine are from the dog's toenails! haha!
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PAT
8/5/2016 11:44:18 am
what kind of wood did you use
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