Newly purchased 1930 house. Having most of the floors redone (sand, seal, poly, etc). Any specialty specifications for typ. strip oak flooring of this age which may never have ben worked on? I am going to get a sand, one coat sealer, and two coat poly from the flooring guy who has come recommended from an industry insider. This seems standard, are there other ways to skin this cat? Do I want an oil-based stain? Three coats of finish? and what quality level/brand name of finish?
Some flooring will be replaced (pet urine stains perhaps?) as a result of the new floor work. Certainly a partial repair is going to be difficult to hide, but is there truly a benefit from taking the floor up (1/3 of it in my case – apprx 100s.f.) and replace with new, just to avoid surface nailing?
Also, plaster and lath walls are in good/great shape. subtle undulations in the finish make me want to skim-coat the surface to get a flat, plumb finish for paint. Any suggestions? What do people typically do and what are the pitfalls?
Replies
You seem to be on the right track with the floors. You could do a lot worse than listening to what the floor finisher has to say.
In general, when you are working with an old house, it is best to look at the big picture and not get too hung up on every little detail. If the floor looks good as a whole, a filled nail hole isn't going to make a bit of difference. If the plaster is sound, a wave or two in the walls won't look bad; they will lend authenticity. Unless you have a huge budget or a working on a house with really special historic significance, spend your time and money taking care of the basics, doing a good job but leaving perfection for someone else. Enjoy your home.
Schell- That is real good stuff.Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
Forget the primal scream, just Roar!
I think the best recommendations come from people who've had work done by the guy. I'd be worried that a recommendation from an insider might be more along the lines of "I'll recommend this guy because he uses our products." But that is just my normal suspicion talking, it might be a bonafied rec. I just know that the people we have hired are due to us noticing someones nicely redone floor and asking "who did this work?"
For 70 y/o floors that may have been sanded a few times, I'd wonder how well just a few boards might fit in given a possible difference in thickness with the currently installed boards. In this type of repair, are new boards planed to an approximate thickness before installation to reduce sanding? It sounds like replacing a large section might make the whole floor a bit more evenly balanced.
bob
Before replacing the flooring with urine or water stains, try oxalic acid first. Mix a solution as directed on the battle, apply, let sit, then neutralize the acid as directed. I avoided any repair as water stains were reduced by about 95 to 98% and urine stains were reduced about 90%. I could live with it because you had to know it was there to notice it. The original flooring was the greater value to me. Some water stains were impossible to find- they were gone.
Patrick-----
Well, I have been calling around to all my trade contacts and nobody can help me with Oxalic Acid. I am eager to try it on my floor (because I will replace it if the attempt goes south), but cannot find an outlet that carries it. Do you have any further suggestions on where to aquire some?
PK,
I believe Parks wood bleach is the same thing. Comes in 2 parts. Apply A, wait 5 mins. apply B. Be careful it can make oak look like poplar....greenish color. You can sand it to an appropiate tone match, the more you sand off the darker the wood becomes. Do some samples first.
Hope this helpsDitch
The two part wood bleach is NOT oxalic acid.
The two part bleach will remove all of the wood color and make it look like sun bleached bones. Don't know what it will do for the stain.
You should be able to oxalic acid at most hardware and "real" paint stores. It is the one of the active ingrediants in some of the deck brighters. It is recommended for waters stains in oak.
Bill,
That's funny...sun-bleached bones...that is exactly what it does if you follow the directions on the box and let it sit 'overnight'. I don't give it a chance to penetrate very deeply, maybe half an hour, and then sand back down until I get the color match I'm looking for.Ditch
I made a table from ash. I was going to leave the top natural. But I was short a board and the new board was much darker than the others.
I had never used wood bleach before so I was just going to try and bleach the dark board.
NO WAY. I had to bleach all of them and then stain them to get anything that match.
Bill,
HAAAAAA!!!!!!! I did the same thing first time. Bleached some white oak repair boards for a hundred year old floor. The next day they looked like....sun bleached bones!! They darkened up more after each pass thru the sander and actually matched pretty well....a lot better than new boards would have. Now I just leave it on for a very short time.Ditch
A source I used in the past for small quantity bottles was The Woodworkers Store but they were bought out by someone and I can't remember their new name. Maybe Woodcrafters? I think some paint stores(such as Benjamin Moore) carry the stuff. Did you try your local pro flooring supplier? A last resort may be a chemical supply house. Sorry I'm drawing a blank on where I got the last bottle.
Patrick--------
Where is this located? If you have the kind of T&G oak that was used in southern CA in those days, it was only about 5/16" thick to begin with, and successive sandings can take out all of the top side of the groove, breaking thru to the tongue of the next piece. If you're in the LA area, I can recommend a great plasterer.
-- J.S.