Inexpensive wood flooring
 

I don't know if this has already been covered or not:

I am renovating my kitchen and like the look of wider wood floors. What's wrong with buying planks at the big box, sanding and staining myself and having a friend install? I want to do this VERY cheaply.

I read on another blog that wood needs to be dried to a certain level or I will end up with some cracks as the wood shrinks. They seemed to think that regular box store wood wouldn't work. I am no carpenter and need advise from anyone on here who can help.

Thanks, Sheryl

No matter what wood you use, you'll need to move it into the house and let it acclimate for several weeks before installing it. Wide boards will appear to shrink more, since it is a percentage, so you'll have larger gaps in dry conditions. If you had 3 boards, each 4" wide, and each one shrank 1/8", you'd have 3 gaps at 1/8". At the same shrink rate, you'd have one gap of 3/8" with a 12" board.

Have you ever priced the boards at big box stores? They would be very expensive! Most areas have places that specialize in raw materials for flooring much cheaper. I'm going to use 1X6 tongue and groove yellow pine, and it is less than half at a real lumber yard versus a big box.

The wide boards at the big box are going to be very soft pine or spruce. It will get beat up pretty fast. Yellow pine is somewhat harder, especially as it ages. Hardwood, such as oak, will hold up much better, but of course, it costs a lot more.

You could do a very cheap floor with plywood, and it wouldn't shrink, but if you ever wanted to sand it to refinish, you'd sand right through the face veneer and ruin it.

One by six car siding would work pretty good. Although it looks pretty smooth, it will have the planer marks horizontal to the grain which will be pretty hard to sand out. It is tongue and groove pine and/or fir, so it will shrink or expand with the changes in humidity, but that movement will be within the grooves and not be too noticeable. You'll have to be careful nailing it down, so as not to break or split the tongues if you use a power nailer. The surface will have soft and hard spots which will turn blotchy if you don't apply a "wash" coat before staining. A couple of coats of polyurethane should finish it. As with all woods, you should bring it inside for a couple of days before laying it, so it will adjust to your indoor climate before nailing it down.

geo

I have seen a floor, they took plywood and cut it in strips to look like boards. It looked good. Nail it with a rustic nail,maybe steel cut.

You'd be surprised how cheap it isn't! Seems like it ought to cost way less than proper hardwood flooring, but it doesn't.

On top of that, softwoods will scratch easily as other folks mentioned.

But the most important consideration of all is probably this: flooring is tongue-and-groove.
And it really needs to be. The natural difference from one board to the next will inevitably twist one edge up and the other edge down, and next thing you know, your socks are catching on that spot, or your chairs are breaking it off in splinters. Floorboards are cut tongue-and-groove so that the edge of one board stays flush with the edge of the next board whether it wants to or not.


Now, you need to go cheap?
Twice, I've salvaged a hardwood floor out of another house. It takes some prep work, and it'll be broken in from day one (that's called "worn" if you don't like it, or "distressed" if you do), but weighing the results vs. the time and effort, they've been two of the best home projects I've ever done. It's just a matter of finding somebody tearing one out, and asking them, "Hey, if you're throwing that away, can I have it?"

I'll add some pictures here in a little while. :)


EDIT:
Here's photos.
First, the BEFORE of the older job. That was vinyl tile over OSB over planks. So we just sawed through the vinyl and OSB at the same time.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...omfloor008.jpg


And the after. That's my friend and my wife, but neither likes their face floating around the internet, and hey, you're here to see the floor, right?
The floor is jatoba, a higher-end South American wood. It was all going in the dumpster, so I saved it.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...051nofaces.jpg


Here's the newer one, in our current house. Before, carpet over particleboard over sleepers on concrete. After, oak over sleepers on concrete.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...reandafter.jpg

I tried lots of methods for getting the staples out of the backside of the boards, and this is definitely the best. A cutting disc in an angle grinder will buzz them off just below the surface, so they don't leave a bump:
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...525_091800.jpg


And, since I discouraged you from doing the softwood plank floor, you should know I sort of did it myself. Our house had laminate wood over vinyl tile over fiberboard on top of these planks... so I pull it all off, then sanded and finished the planks. Some day I'll put hardwood on top of them, but that was good enough for moving in. These are cut shiplap, so the edge are a little uneven, but tolerable. Good enough for now.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...621_105857.jpg


Hope that helps!
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...621_105857.jpg

I liked the ship lap better than oak hardwood it has a lot of the old timey look.

We got our hardwood flooring as 'Utility Grade' or something like that.
The ends of the boards sometimes had knotholes etc..

Not a problem!
Those were cut and laid so that they were under the kitchen cabinetry.
Out of sight.

It ended up being much, much less expensive than buying the top grade stuff.
If you could get lower quality and just put the bad edges where the couch would go etc.. you can save a bundle.

My B-I-L did a lot of houses with #3 pine from the lumber yard. It shrinks and has big gaps for dirt to build up in. The wider the board the more it cups, if one cups up and the other down there is a BIG rough spot. It is real soft, a wheeled desk chair leaves big grooves. It has exposed nail heads that show, some he put filler in, some came out. The floor squeaks after time. I have used a lot of ponderosa pine tongue and groove, it is harder, the nails are in the grooves and it does not cup....James

when its all said and done, considering the time labor and true costs....its cheaper and easier to go get a lower grade hardwood (oak) flooring from a box store thats prefinished.

Depending on the look you want, there is another 'free' option. I have seen a room done with pallet wood. Looked rustic and actually neat. Now if you want something more formal, it woudln't be good. The man who did this (sorry, no pics) also built furniture from the oak planks on pallets and wall coverings. Pallets are not all oak, but a lot of them are.

Wow, thanks for all the replies. You have all given me a lot to think about. Since it's not on the schedule for 2014 (not till 2015 but I hate to procrastinate) I have time to think about this. Thanks again!

http://www.layers-of-learning.com/re...-from-plywood/

These people did wood flooring out of plywood. They said it was really cheap? To all the carpenters - What is your opinion of this?

Gorgeous floors!

Moisture content in a wood floor should be between 7%-9%. All woods shrink and expand with moisture changes, either in the environment or coming from a basement/crawlspace. Woods from lumber yards usually have around 22% moisture content, and will shrink considerably over time. Wide planks 8" plus should be adhered with construction adhesive as well as nailed to minimize cupping.

As a general rule, the wider the plank the more expensive it is. If you're looking for a "different" look, consider "random width" pattern, using 2 1/4", 4", 6". Also, if you're going to job site sand and finish it, and want a "rustic" look, use #2 common oak. It will have lots of knots (some open, but you can fill them) and mineral streaks. It's the least expensive oak, but it makes a beautifully charactered floor.

Many small flooring manufacturers will sell unfinished flooring direct to the public at very good prices. A little time and research might save you quite a bit, and get some of their "off goods" out of their warehouse.

I have 35 years experience in wood flooring, so if you have any questions PM me. I'll be glad to help.

Plywood is fine, within limits. It has a funky grain because it is cut from a rotating log, so the grain won't look like real lumber. There are exotic plywoods with oak, mahogany, or just about any other face veneer you can think of. Their are some cheap luan plywoods that look a lot like mahogany. The other problem, as I said earlier, is that the face veneer is pretty thin, especially on the fancy grades. You couldn't sand and refinish it without a risk of sanding through the face ply. For the price, though, it would be just as easy to simply re-do the floor after X amount of years. I've been in pretty old houses that have never had the floors sanded. I would have an area rug in really high wear areas so that foot traffic didn't wear through the top layer.

Really cheap plywood can delaminate, even indoors. For the amount of work, I'd use something at least a little better. Cheap plywood can also have core voids, which could cave in under a point load like high heels or small appliance casters. Marine plywood ($$$) in particular is not allowed to have core voids, and the glue holding it together is better.

I did the sun room with 1/2" particle board. I stained it first and then cut it into odd lengths. Then I covered it with 4 coats of water based polyurethane.

It came out looking pretty good and seems to be holding up well considering I have 2 young springers and the room opens up to the outside so they track lots of sand into it.

The poly was $40 and the 5 sheets of particle board. The whole room cost less than $150.

Is it really that much cheaper, with all the work? We're looking at doing floors, and for $0.79 per square foot we are probably just going to do the laminate that looks like wood.

I've seen utility grade oak, 3/4" t&g, for as little as .99 cents a square foot at Lumber liquidators. I personally think there is way to much waste using this grade. I'll generally buy #2 red oak, which I can buy at around 1.50. In the last couple of years I've found Chinese prefinished hardwood for $1.99. It's hard to beat the price when you don't have the expense of poly, sandpaper, filler and machine rental . I own a machine and still find myself installing the Chinese oak in most circumstances. Prefinished will last longer than any finish you apply at home. I've installed a lot of pergo and pergo knock offs, but find they don't last near as long as a real 3/4" hardwood floor. False economy in my experience.

I just can't stand the clicking sound when you walk on the laminates.... sounds like you're walking on plastic or something. :( I've been thinking for a while now about doing the back of my house with plywood cut into strips and T&G'd on my router table. My biggest problem is my master bedroom was added on to the back porch and the back porch is concrete. I can nail the boards down to the subfloor in the bedroom, but when I get out into the old porch area, I don't know what I'd do. Just liquid nail the whole thing I guess, but I worry about it coming up over time and with my luck, a SHORT time.

If you have a little time, you should be able to get all the T&G hardwood flooring you want for free or nearly free from your local craig's list. People are always selling for nothing or giving away the extra boxes or torn out flooring. I have made a few floors with multispecies t&g flooring obtained this way and it always gets compliments...

You could nail down strips with concrete nails and then use them to fasten the flooring.

Or just paint the concrete.

"Engineered" wood flooring is in reality plywood with a hardwood veneer. You could install your plywood with the same wood flooring adhesive over both the wood subfloor and concrete. Because it's multi-ply it's very dimensionally stable, but T&G is still necessary.

Well, I can't find the pictures.... I used 1/4' luan plywood. Took a straight edge and a pencil, drew in my plank lines every 6 inches. Then stained and varnished. It looks like a plank floor, costs very little, and will do until I have to change it! If I decide to carpet, I have a good underlayment already going on.

I may just go with ceramic tile over the concrete because that's the laundry room/mud room from the back door. It's also right off the kitchen that is now vinyl but I will be tiling, so maybe I'll just tile that to match the kitchen.

The luan sounds interesting Cheribelle!

If it concrete why not just leave it?

Polished and or stained concrete looks fantastic.

Google 'paper bag floor' for ideas for concrete. In brief, you randomly tear up pieces of brown paper bag, crumple them and then smooth them out. Glue them down with white glue, and once dry, multiple coats of polyurethane. If done right, it looks kind of like leather. I suppose you put it down over any subfloor that the glue would stick to, although I've mostly seen it done on concrete. We have a great room in our barn that I'm going to do that way.

something i saw once that sort of relates to what your asking.
this guy put down a ply-wood subfloor.
then got a pickup load of dried hard wood wood chips (each about the size of my thumb)
then he got about 2 dozen different "sample size" wood stains in various colors and stained the chips in several buckets
then tossed them all mixed up on the sub floor and smoothed them out with a heavy rolling weight
added a bucket of binder. (some kind of wood glue i think) and rolled it flat again
at this point it had the texture of a wooden gravel floor but not loose if that makes any sense
so then he takes a power sander to the whole thing to smooth it flat and it becomes an almost seamless hardwood floor with a almost mosaic pattern

he said it was really cheep for the effect though i dont know what the actual cost was.

kinda like this ( http://g.vatgia.vn/gallery_img/1/msq1350374109.jpg ) but all different shapes not squares

I must say that after looking at the link about plywood flooring (I had only seen the squares of high grade plywood laid down before) I am impressed!

It looks much better than I thought.
Actually pondering the possibilities. We have to do the rest of the house too..

And our Utility Grade oak flooring has very little waste and it looks great.
But we were able to put the knotty parts under the cabinets, so maybe better for a kitchen floor redo.

A friend of mine did this over stick-on-tile and it looked awesome. I believe she colored it by rubbing brown shoe polish over it. The only way I knew it was paper was because she told me. I wouldn't have known otherwise.

MSCantrell, you do good work! I wish you were working for me : )
I have several floors in my old house that need done. But also don't have the funds to tackle them. I like the old hard wood floors that are in some rooms. By some peoples standards they have been ruined, stained, worn down in places, gouges etc. But one day I will strip them and refinish, if I ever get caught up. I also have old painted pine board floors in a hallway and room, probably just strip them and repaint. Then my dining room has a plywood floor. Since I can't afford to do much with it, I'm thinking about cleaning it well and doing something creative with paint?

I'd personally avoid Laminate like poison. We put it throughout our non-homesteading house and regretted it from day one. Good quality. Didn't matter. The stuff buckled and swelled at the seams. The company offered to replace, we passed on the offer. It would have meant tearing up the whole floor in 4 rooms worth.

I am intrigued about the Luan plywood pseudo hardwood look posted by Cheribelle. Our entire homestead is floored with cabinet grade hickory plywood sheets over strand board. Basically hardwood in it's own right. We have been debating whether to put down regular oak hardwood flooring or just leave the hickory flooring. I'm the artsiefartsie type so, heck yeah, I could do that! I would love to save a bunch of money and see some pics of your handiwork.

As for the paper bag floor. Definitely consider it. We did one room once again in our non-homesteading house this way. It's work, but it's a unique and beautiful floor. My advice though is do it in the summer, use water base poly at first but make sure your last layer of polyurethane is oil based. It will definitely give you a more durable finish.

I saw a really nice DIY floor done by a guy, when i asked about it he told me it was done using reclaimed wood pallets that he got for free...

I saw a floor made of particle board cut in 2 ft squares finished with polyurethane. Looked almost exactly like cork, very attractive. And I once ripped out ratty carpeting where I was living and painted the plywood underlay with deck paint. Looked decent, and an artistic person could have painted an area rug or other design on the floor. And one of the most interesting floors I ever saw was made from thin slices of 2x4 glued down and then finished, I imagine with some kind of resin for "grout". This was in a rustic lodge, the individual grain patterns of the 2x4s made for a striking appearance. On all of these, you'd have to renew the surface periodically, and they would sure clash with your Louis XIV furniture, but - they worked.

Look into buying flooring at auction. People will sell floors they have torn out but don't want to throw away, or even new and discontinued lines. Good prices usually!

I just had to chime in and second the Avoid Laminate at all costs. We did a good portion of our house in laminate just under 5 years ago and it is Beat Up. We don't abuse it, but every drop of water that hits a seam swells them. Have to be careful cleaning floors to not use too damp a mop. Since it floats, a few smaller pieces move, leaving gaps that have to be constantly nudged back into place. We loved it at first, beautiful looks way cheaper than real hardwood, but have now sworn off laminate forever more.

i must wonder at the negative laminate flooring posts. ive installed MANY laminate floors through the yrs and i havent had a single problem. ive even seen same floors yrs later that still looked like new.

they are more durable than real wood in many instances. hold up to water much better than real wood. and high quality of laminate is just as pricey as low quality solid wood. the higher the quality the more durable and easier to install than real wood.

with that said 90% of my experience is with upper end laminate. i have installed cheap stuff and now refuse to when a customer requests laminate. i recommend they spend the money or i wont install it just because its not as durable and beast to install w/o chipping the finish.

i will also add. i personally dont like laminate. its a cheap (looking) knockoff to real wood. i dont and wont put it in my personal house just because im a fan of solid wood flooring. not because its a bad product because from my experience its great. but i dont like a fascade. im a carpenter with a great appreciation for real wood products.

but as a product, the laminate has its time and place in certain situations and calibers of homes. i recommend it.

UThanks, Cheribelle, you motivated me. Not much to do outside, or that you can do because of the weather so I decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at your suggestion. If we don't like it, nothing lost but some time and something different can go over it.

The wood on our floor isn't standard plywood. It is Cabinet grade Hickory. The previous owner was an Amish cabinet maker and seemed to like to work with hickory as the cabinets and doors are all either solid hickory or trimmed with hickory. It seems a shame to cover it, yet I'm not overly excited with the plywood sheet look. It has never been stained.The previous lady of the house used Linseed oil on it twice a year. I haven't done anything to it for the past 5 years other than the usual moping, etc.

So my plan is to do a three inch plank lay up with faux nail heads. The floor will be stained darker and I am hoping to variate the stain so there are different shades to the faux planking. Finally the whole area will be sealed with polyurethane once we finish leveling the floors.

Here is a pick of the primary results. I decided to use Sharpies to do the lines as the staining should mute the darkness of the magic markers.

http://veloliner.com/farm/fauxfloor.JPG
When time permits I will post more about it in the home improvement thread area.

Does anyone have experience with using end grain wood tiles. As if you took a 2x4 and cut it into numerous 3/4" tiles. These could be laid out in a brick pattern, herringbone or running bond, glued (?) down, sanded and poly'd to finish.
In the 19th century many factory floors were end grain wood flooring due to it's strength and resistance to wear.
I have no personal experience with this but I've always kept it in mind as a viable alternative to wood plank flooring.
Would love to hear of any real examples plus pics!

We put oak plywood in the living room. It was never meant to be permanent so we didn't cut strips, we made them 2' x 4' to be as easy and manageable as possible.

We figured as long as it looks ok for a few years until we can get hardwood down it'd be ok.

It's been down 2 1/2 years now and is wearing well. I'll see if I can dig out some pics.

ETA Before the Persian rug and coffee table went back in. You could take more care and make it look better than we did, we did a quick job as we knew it was temporary and we had more pressing projects going on at the time.

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...ps146102e5.jpg

Here's why we did it.

We were told that there was the old t&g pine under the wall to wall carpet, I HATE carpet so decided to tear it out. We got into pulling up the old OSB between the carpet and the pine and the pine looked pretty good, but as we went it got worse and worse and we realized it was not worth trying to restore it.

We were stuck with terrible condition old pine flooring and no budget for new hardwood. So we plonked the ply on for the time being :)

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...ps58301bfc.jpg