Luaun or plywood? What's the diff?

I'm going to throw another idea out there for you. I read a blog a while back about a guy in Alaska that used paper on his cabin floor. I wish I had the link for you because it looked great!! Brown paper torn in irregular shapes, dipped in various shades of stain, placed on floor, dried, and coated with several layers of poly. He said it held up to the snow/rain great.

I might try it in our camp. Can't be any worse than the floor that's there.

I was going to comment on this. Luan has gone from a fairly decent underlayment, to being basically junk over the last two decades. I'm refering to the $9/sheet commodity grade from the lumber yard here, not specialty products. Most sheet flooring manufacturers will not allow it for several reasons, including the fact that the quality control is pathetic. I have seen voids where the core is missing, and the exceptionally thin skin layer is all there is. A high healed shoe would punch throught it with no trouble.

I agree with that. Even the salesman at the "big box" told me that the luan had voids in it and shouldn't be used for underlayment. Scratch that idea.

I guess I'm toying with the idea of just patching the rough spots in the OSB the best I can, and throwing a few coats of paint over it for a temporary flooring.

Bubbahead, I've heard of doing the kraft paper finish, but I've only seen it on walls. I wonder how it'd hold up on the floor? If you didn't get each layer of paper absolutely stuck to each other, it'd be spongy, wouldn't it?

we used tempered masonite for a kitchen floor in the old trailer held up pretty well nearly ten years with a heavy coat of poly . and was still usable for laying lenolium on . of course it was slicker than greased owl poop , with stocking feet it was like an ice rink

Another idea that might work for you is a laminate floor. DH and I installed a very cheap one in our kitchen as a temporary cover-up. One of the previous owners had decided that carpet in the kitchen was a good idea. Even though I cleaned it every month with rug shampoo, it was still gross. We ripped it up and found some very old, very brittle linoleum underneath. Since it ran under the cabinets, we couldn't remove it until we were ready for the full-blown kitchen remodel. We ended up buying the cheapest laminate flooring from Lowes ($125 for the planks and a foam underlayment/leveler). We installed it in an afternoon, and neither DH or I had ever done a project like it before. It has chipped in a few places, but it's MUCH better than the nasty carpet or flaking linoleum, and I can actually keep it clean. We'll replace it in another year or so, but I consider it money well spent. Another bonus is that when it comes time to take it up, we can disassemble it without ruining it and either use it in another room or donate it to the Habitat ReStore.

I saw a floor on TV, an OSB floor that the person had routed squares into. It looked like 12x12 tile. The grooves from the router were darker, did not see the entire episode, guess he stained the grooves and several layers of of some kind of sealer, probably some type of poly. It really looked good on TV. I thought it WAS tile till the guy explained what it really was. It was very shinny.
My Hubby plans to experiment with this look on his shed floor just to see how it works.

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