*
John- The 5″ ash flooring you mentioned would give you a beautiful floor. Another type you might want to check into is Australian Cyprus. It has a lot of color variation & some knots as well, giving it a rustic appearance. We use it often in log cabin homes. It’s one of my favorites. Check it out.
Mike.
Replies
*
John- The 5" ash flooring you mentioned would give you a beautiful floor. Another type you might want to check into is Australian Cyprus. It has a lot of color variation & some knots as well, giving it a rustic appearance. We use it often in log cabin homes. It's one of my favorites. Check it out.
Mike.
*
Hi John,
How about Southern yellow pine for your floor? I installed several. One was a narrow 3" width, another was 6" width, but the one I liked the most was random widths which ran from 4 to 8 inches.
In my opinion, yellow pine is just as durable as old growth heart pine and can be stained to give the same warm glow of old growth.
The best looking finish that I liked came from using Minwax Puritan Pine stain which I applied with a wool applicator pad, and then followed up with three coats of oil based satin poly.
On the 6" wide plank floor I milled the tongue and groove on the boards at my shop, and even with my labor the price was still quite a bit lower than old growth heart pine.
By the way, the ash floor you mentiuoned would certainly give you a very beautiful floor, and with the hardness of ash it would sure be durable.
*
Mad Dog
I am glad to hear you praise SYP because many flooring people in my area don't recommend it because they believe it's not durable especially with children around. I am looking at American Cherry 3" wide that comes out of Canada with seven coats of water based poly. For rustic grade I can get it for 3.99 sqft or select for 5.99. Would you recommend Am. cherry as a durable floor compared to SYP? I really like how the cherry ages. Any comments appreciated.
*
Hi Max,
Actually it's more a matter of preference on your part. Cherry; though it is considered to be a hardwood, is not as hard as say ash, red, or white oak. In my opinion cherry would probably be as equivalent in durability as SYP. It's true that cherry ages; however, with a water based poly I'm not sure if you would get the same ageing look as if it were finished with an oil based poly. Water based polys don't seem to yellow with age as oil based.
One of the best looking finishes I've seen applied to cherry ( though it is not recommended for floors) is Watco Danish Oil, as it really brings out the natural beauty of cherry.
As for the SYP floor. I installed one about three yrs ago for a guy that was a team roper. He and his wife and children certainly don't baby their floor, and it looks as good today as it did the day it was finished.
*I can not imagine pine holding up well on floors. Southern yellow pine must be a lot denser then the pine we get here in Oregon.
*
My ash flooring is 15 years old, never been refinished and still looks great. It is 3 and 5 inch wide with prominent v's between boards. It was actually milled as paneling, I just paneled the floor. The stain is Minwax Early American with two gloss coats of poly and one coat of satin. Still looks great. The knots in ash are wild and beautiful. I had more made later and it was TOO CLEAR. Hard to believe but true. Oh, by the way, my two kids are now 17 and 20, so they grew up on this and it survived them as well. ALso my dog lives in the house too. Great stuff. DAN
*
John, "Mill Run" ash is varigated in color... photos will be forthcoming. However, if an antique pine look is wanted, I'll second the Australian Cypress vote. I've seen it in 3 and 4.25 inch widths.
Hardness is greater than SYP, closer to Cherry, no where near as hard as Ash.
*One more data point about SYP. This weekend I visited the Old Fort Smith courthouse, a recently re-opened national park site. The displays are set up in the old courthouse, on a new floor that looks to be water based finished SYP. I'm 99% certain of the wood, and 95% certain of the finish. Load of traffic, loads of abrasive dirt, could not find a scratch. (For historical reference, I think that oak would have been more appropriate, I think SYP, in this area, is post 1900. Interested in other opinions.)One more data point. I have put up SYP solid siding and trim. Starting a nail in it requires a large hammer (got it), a diverse vocabulary (got it), and a very accurate swing (as an amatuer I'm out of luck there!) Question. Is density of wood the only property that determines hardness?
*John I do a lot of older houses and fir used to be a favorite. The color variations and grain are both nice in a casual home. As to durability the newer polyurethanes seem very durable and you have to get through them to whatever is underneath before you start tearing up the wood. Just thought I'd add that. Whatever wood you choose I'm sure you'll be happy. Skip
*We lay an huge amount of old heart pine each year, although the wider widiths are becoming rarer and more expensive. It is very dense, but high heels will mark it, but that is part of the look. We also remill old timbers into flooring, cheaper, and very nice looking.Our favorite finish a little color to even things out a bit, and two coats of dura seal sealer, followed with duraseal paste wax. Great soft look, plus if you wax every few years, you will never need to refinish.If you need sources for these floor email medavid
*Depending on needs and budget, all the ideas so far have been good. SYP is great flooring, IMO and beautiful too. Have that in a large room, old heart pine in upstairs, oak and maple in others, all have some scratches and marks, but if you don't care about how rustic a floor looks, I've used softwoods like t&g ponderosa pine with nails showing or not (use old style square heads). This will look rustic because it gets a little beaten up, but I like the look, and it is very cheap.MD
*Ken's question got me curious. Not being at all an expert on Southern pine, I thought I would see what the Wood Handbook; Wood as an Engineering Material (Forest Products, USDA, $41 from your local, friendly U.S. Government bookstore) had to say about Southern Yellow Pine. Surprise - they don't list anything as Southern yellow pine. However, they do list the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau as setting the softwood grading rules for Longleaf pine, slashpine, shortleaf pine, loblolly pine, Virginia pine, pond pine, and pitch pine, so I assume these might be the species you are referring to when you say "Southern yellow pine. (Here in the great Northwest, our pines have their grading rules set by the Western Wood Products Association for Ponderosa pine, western white pine, sugar pine, lodgepole pine, and Idaho white pine.)Anyway, the most relevant measure in the Wood Handbook would appear to be "Side Hardness" (although "Compression perpendicular to grain" might also have some bearing). Of those listed, Longleaf pine has the highest side hardness at 3,900, with Virginia pine at 3,300, and 3,100 for loblolly pine (the others do not have a hardness listed). For our Western pines, the listings are lodgepole at 2,100, Ponderosa at 2,000, Western White at 1,900, and Sugar pine at 1,700. For comparison, Douglas fir is given as between 3,200 at the coast and 2,300 at the Southern interior. White oak is given as 6,000, Southern red oak is 4,700, and sugar maple is given as 6,400. (The measure given is "generally defined as resistance to indentation" and is the force required to force a 11.28 into the wood to 1/2 its diameter. I am guessing that the number is in Newtons - as in Isaac, not Wayne...) As for hardness and density (of course you know that a soft hardwood can be softer than a hard softwood...i.e. quaking aspen at 1600 or even American chestnut at 2,400 is softer than Eastern red cedar at 4,000) there appears to be a reasonably good, but not perfect relation between specific density and hardness. For some arbitrary examples, the following all have the same specific density of 0.63 with the following hardness ratings: water oak, 5300; pin oak, 6700; Laurel 5,400; sugar maple, 6400. With a specific density of 0.59, longleaf pine has a hardness of 3900 while Southern red oak is 4700 (white oak with a specific density of 0.68 is 6000). Found another section referring to "nomenclature of commercial softwood lumber" and they list "Souther Pine Major" as loblolly, longleaf, shortleaf, and slash pine. "Southern Pine Minor" is given as pond, sand, spruce pine, and Virginia pine; while "Southern Pine Mixed" is all of the preceeding except for sand pine and spruce pine. (OK, so much for that coffee break...)
*Casey You've got me thinking, because for years Southern yellow pine has been a stanrd around here. It makes a tough but beautiful trim and is used alot in framing. Will try and find out if it is one particular tree or whatever. skip
*That's great Casey,Sounds like SYP is alot like our Hem/Fir in that when you get a stick stamped Hem Fir it would take a DNA sample or a microscope to figure out which white fir it was.I've worked with SYP and can atest to its hardness, strength, and the potential for unruliness (twisting).It can't be much harder to lay straight than the mixed species Hickory, Ash, Gum that i've used in my home. I once swore i'd never lay pecan or hickory floors again but i lied.joe d
*
Hi Folks:
We are getting ready to build. Our house style will be casual. We love the look of distressed, reclaimed, old pine floors (the rich honey/amber color) but are concerned about wear and tear, and price. Any suggestions for a particularly interesting wood species that we might consider? We don't want "clear"...we like grain and knots. We prefer wider boards, random width...we saw some 5" t&g ash that looks nice but would want to stain it to darken it a bit and bring out the grain and color variation. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Any finishing techniques (specific stain(s) and/or protective finish) would be excellent. Thanks much.
*Consider 'character' style heart pine from Goodwin, Joinery or E.T.Moore, etc. Hard-wearing & beautiful with old nail holes, tool marks, etc.Jeff