Floorboards - imperfect & uneven

[ronnie]

Hi

First post here, so excuse me if I'm covering things that have gone before.

I have a weatherboard terraced cottage (circa 1800) and have lifted the floor coverings on the second floor to expose wooden floorboards that show historical evidence of woodworm etc (no longer present), they're uneven, of different lengths and widths.

I'd like to make them more presentable, but without making them perfect. I can't sand them to a perfect finish - as to do so I'd probably go through the floor, but I could sand them to take off the worst of the rough edges.

I thought then of putting an oil based stain down.

Does this sound sensible? Any recommendations for someone near Canterbury to do this for me?

Thanks

Ronnie

 

[Craig]

I understand that if you sand boards that have suffered woodworm, you can expose the worm holes underneath and the finish may get worse as you go down, not better.

SPAB do a leaflet on the reapirs of wooden floor boards - maybe worth reading?

We have the same issue - we are trying to learn to love them as they are!

 

[middi]

if you floorboards are too " itzy bitzy" and they offend you eye , you can always leave them where they are, fix new wood fillets in the direction of the floor joists to get a decent level and lay a lovely new wood floor above the existing.

That way you conserve what you have and enjoy the benefit of a lovely straight new floor.

This is only possible if you have enough head room and not an exessive alteration of the door height.

Just another option.

 

[Becka]

try polishing them up a bit and see how they look..? my bathroom floor is a patchwork of different woods on quite a slope (you walk uphill to the sink) with big uneven gaps between the boards that I'm experimenting with filling with linseed putty! (the were too wobbly for wooden fillets and in too wet an area for papier mache) but despite/ and because of all that I think its great.. thick slabs of (mostly) elm you know have baeen walked on for centuries