old fashioned flooring question

[Alice In TX/MO]

I like the look of old general store floors. These floors are wide plank, and they simply look like 1 x 12 boards nailed down, rather than tongue and groove. Is there any reason I CAN'T use 1 x 12 boards? I would put them over plywood subflooring. I want the rustic look.

[travlnusa]

No reason at all that you could not do that. Make sure that you put roofing (tar) paper between subfloor and flooring as a vapor barrier.

Take some time and see if you can find some old cut nails to complete the look.

[pamintexas]

Rose, we bought unfinished 12" wide pine flooring from Lumber Liquidators in Austin to get that rustic look and we love it. Pine is a softer wood and will show dings and imperfections that you wouldn't get with hardwood but we don't mind that. The price was very reasonable and so was their delivery fee.

[MissKitty]

This sounds so interesting...CAn you post a picture???...Also how do you keep dirt and other debri out of the cracks...I like this idea...MissKitty

[pamintexas]

The planks fit close together so there are no big cracks to worry about. So far we have just used an oil finish (Watco Danish oil finish followed up with a linseed oil/turpentine mix) but I'm thinking we may go with a poly because it is easier to keep clean. Lumber Liquidators has a website with photos of all their lumber. We plan to buy our butcher block there for our kitchen counter tops which is what we are currently working on.

[starjj]

Pam How hard is it to do the butcher block on the countertops? I would like to try to do it for my house. I really don't want laminate again and solid countertops are way too expensive.

[Alex]

If you do a search for, flooring, you will get lots of good ideas, like my post from June 27, 2005:

Our floors are rough-sawn 2 x 8 pine, sawn at the Gonvick's mill. They are 33 years old and have a beautiful color now, and Nancy made lots of braided-wool rugs. We put ten coats of high gloss varnish on the floors, after we put tar between the joints -- after I sanded all the floors with my old belt sander -- these planks are over 2" think and very solid.

2 x 8 Pine, Nancy's Rug Over root Cellar Hatch

You can duplicate an old-cabin-look, like ours, on any floor, if you want too.

Good Luck,

Alex

Good Luck,

Alex

[pamintexas]

Didn't mean to highjack this thread.
StarJ, I don't think the butcher block is going to be any more difficult to install than a laminate would be. My husband will be doing the work and he is pretty handy but we'll have to wait and see I guess.
I'll try and get a good picture of the flooring tomorrow when the light is better.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Pam, I was thinking pine anyway. I didn't know Lumber Liquidators had a line of wide unfinished flooring. EXCELLENT!!

Thank you for the tip. Here's their website with unfinished floors....

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/sho...?category_id=2