new old wide board flooring.

[robgil]

the three top floors in my cottage are wide board floor boards , they look quite ancient and really lovely. sometime in the past someone chopped huge chunks out of them , perhaps 2 or 3 meters squared per room , and they put down some new floor boards and varnished them in some horrid brown varnish.

i would never be able to source boards with the same patina as the old ones but one option is to source rough cut green oak boards and cut them to the same width as the old, original boards.

do i have any other options? reclaimed floor boards like these cost a small fortune and it would be nice to lay new boards but cut to the same spec as the old ones.

basically i am not sure what to do , do i replace the whole floor and keep the old boards hoping to get one room floor out of what i have?
do i try and find old boards to fit in the big holes presently filled in by newish boards?
or do i leave it alone and hide the new boards with rugs and furniture?

 

[Feltwell]

Can you patch with boards from elsewhere in the house? I was able to by using boards from inside the eaves cupboards of my attic, I then replaced them with modern boards.

Or (purists look away now please) have you 1 room where it will be carpeted, that you could replace with modern or reclaimed boards and then use the good originals to patch the other rooms?

 

[Lime]

I would not remove the old boards for many reasons, not least that they are historic and part of the house.
I'd replace the modern little boards with either modern cut-to-fit or reclaimed board of same wood as floor.
Fitted well, the repairs would mould into the fabric of the house rather than clash forever.

 

[robgil]

that's what i was thinking about doing , making one whole room out of all the original boards and then laying new boards in their place, the only problem i can see with doing this is the boards might terminate half way across the room , which is only around 4 or 5 meters wide.
i am just not quite sure where to get new boards from that are not engineered flooring such as the modern tongue and groove stuff available , i want a new old floor if that makes sense. it would be nice to get boards cut with a pit saw although i would say this is very unlikely and would probably be very expensive.

i did find these guys on tinternet so perhaps they might be able to source some old boards or perhaps some new ones.

http://www.wideboards.com/index.php

this elm floor they layed is absolutely gorgeous.

 

[robgil]

I would not remove the old boards for many reasons, not least that they are historic and part of the house.
I'd replace the modern little boards with either modern cut-to-fit or reclaimed board of same wood as floor.
Fitted well, the repairs would mould into the fabric of the house rather than clash forever.

i did consider this as well but how could i get the new boards to have the same patina as the old? and surely if the old floor is replaced with exactly the same boards only new then from a historical point of view it is replacing like for like rather than old for new?

 

[MdB]

I think I would be with Lime on leaving the old boards where they are and trying to put in an improved patch using better matching boards. The mismatch would still be seen but could be considered to be "character". In our house, we have doubled the number of exposed floor joists to reduce the amount of floor bounce upstairs. In one section, we could have removed a weird arrangement where a staircase used to be. We left it as it was as it keeps the history of the house though the builders couldn't understand it as it does look a bit strange and destroys the symmetry of the room.

(I am also useless at lifting floorboards without damaging them so wouldn't dare want to lift boards as lovely as yours)

 

[DaveBrigg]

At least the repairs are not chipboard. I would also be wary about removing all the boards; it is not easy to get them up without damage, and nailing them back down can play havoc if the plaster is loose on the ceilings below (or if the glass rim of your new light fittings are not secure ) If moving rugs or furniture is not an option, some of the bigger builder's yards have plain pine boards of a similar width. We needed some for barge boards, and managed to get new pine a foot wide and at least 12 feet long. Matching the colour will probably take a lot of practice though.

 

[AMc]

I have heard though never seen that scaffold deals can be used as a fair 'new' replacement for old boards.
One of our rooms has a modern wood floor with no T&G which appears to be planed planks. It's not a patch on the original wide boards, but all in one place it looks OK.

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

Leaving the old boards in place and improving the patching has got to be the way forward.

First you need to identify the species used for the 'original' boards. From the pics it's hard to say, as they seem to be covered in some sort of paint or other finish. Perhaps inspection of the end grain will help. I'd guess they'll be a softwood of sorts, maybe pitch pine. How old is your house?

Then you need to find a decent timber merchant who will sell you something appropriate. Redwood is readily available in widths up to 300mm in 25mm thick, which you could cut down. Pitchpine is now only available as reclaimed, but Douglas Fir can make a fair substitute for grain and colour.

I'd avoid green oak as the shrinkage will be a problem. If you need to match original oak then a good merchant should carry ex 1" planks of kiln dried oak in suitable widths.

Then you have the difficult choice between living with the 'honest' colour of your new wood or trying to stain it down with something to make it match the surrounding timber. I'd leave it looking new and just wait a few decades.

 

[Wren]

We had some patching to do. Tracked down a small relatively local wood yard that uses reclaimed wood and can cut wood to size. The problem with buying new floorboards was that they would not be the right dimensions and invariably are tongue and groove. We also explored the option of getting new wood cut to size at the main timber supplier in town, but they really didn't want to know (refused to give us the option of choosing the colour of wood we wanted, and quoted a huge fee for machine set up cost). The other option might have been a specialist floorboard supplier, which would have meant going much further afield and as we wanted some quite long boards transport would have been a pain.

On the other hand...save yourself a load of hassle and splash out on a gorgeous kilim or oriental rug (a really nice antique one). Sounds tempting. Even better (getting carried away now) - book yourself a holiday to somewhere like Turkey (Istanbul is well worth a visit), Morocco or Mumbai and do some shopping while you are there.

P.S. Warning - if asking someone to cut floorboards to size do tell them, until they are sick of hearing it, that you definitely do not want tongue and groove, else they are likely to go on autopilot and churn out the usual.

 

[Moo]

If you're trying to get new boards from a timber merchant, don't talk about 'floorboards'. Just ask for planks.
We needed to replace some rotten boards in our son's 1900s house in south London. The timber yard in Peckham couldn't match the dimensions exactly, but were happy, for a nominal cost, to plane some overlarge ones to the exact size. We spent a happy evening experimenting with a cocktail of wood dyes and son now has a floor that would pass all but the most pernickety examinations.

 

[Wideboards]

I'm the 'guys' on the internet that made the wonderful English Elm floor which Robgil has posted as a photo above. You can find me and many similar floors in very wide boards at http://www.wideboards.com . However, my purpose here is not the advertising, but to say that not all old floorings were laid as square edged. Many were fitted half lapped way back into preTudor times. In later years, around Georgian times and beyond, iron pins and steel loose tongues were also used.
I have been emailed by Robgil and have responded with my advice which, in essence, repeats much of the advice given in the forum replies. I am more concerned with the original hardwood boards than the subsequent softwood replacements, which, to me on a personal level, are an abomination and should be removed or put out of sight by close carpeting if the costs are beyond countenance! Try to leave the remaining original boards undisturbed, make good with old boards if you can find and afford them, with new if you cannot. New boards can be made to blend nicely with the old, particularly if hand worked and fumed rather than stained. Sign and date repairs on the underside for future generations. Old boards are invariably brittle, the fixings welded to the wood by corrosion, so are difficult to lift without causing damage. Robgil's pics show that the original boards are riven with splits and shakes, so will be easily damaged by lifting. The really old boards are almost certainly oak, but could be chestnut and there appears to be one board that looks like elm. The surface can be cleaned of the horrible gunk that has been applied and repolished to look absolutely astounding, but must not be drum sanded. That would ruin it. I offer independent fee'd consultancy as well as restoration timber and contracting but cannot spend too much time on free advice.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Nice to see your reply and future help would be good but it would be better if you removed the link from your post and put it in your profile instead.

 

[robgil]

i have just read your e mail , thank you , it was very interesting and helpful. the best idea then is to leave the old boards down and fit newer/reclaimed boards to fill the holes. the ceilings below are part lath and plaster and part fibre board so hopefully i wont do any more damage lifting the newer boards, i will be repairing the ceiling below anyway.
to strip the gunk off the old boards , would i need a chemical stripper?

 

[Flyfisher]

On the other hand...save yourself a load of hassle and splash out on a gorgeous kilim or oriental rug (a really nice antique one). Sounds tempting. Even better (getting carried away now) - book yourself a holiday to somewhere like Turkey (Istanbul is well worth a visit), Morocco or Mumbai and do some shopping while you are there.

Last time I was in Turkey a chap selling such rugs was promoting the advantage of not having to carry them back to the UK personally because he would supply them directly from his 'warehouse' in Watford. It turned out that he lived in the UK but spent his summers in Turkey (he was of Turkish descent) selling to UK tourists. Funny old world.

 

[DaveBrigg]

not all old floorings were laid as square edged. Many were fitted half lapped way back into preTudor times. In later years, around Georgian times and beyond, iron pins and steel loose tongues were also used.

We have some old boards which have a groove in both edges, and a long, thin 'tongue' which fits into adjacent edges, holding them together. Unfortunately, with age and years of being walked on, the thin wood above the groove has become brittle and split, leaving a long shallow trench between the boards, and a separate tongue which does little in the way of holding the boards together. All easily cured by laying sheets of hardboard over the top before carpeting :|

 

[michael]

From your photos, some of the original boards look very dark as if covered with a black or ebony floor paint? Would it be easy to replicate this colour if so you could try infilling the new areas with old scaffold boards, notched out to sit at the right height over the joists and if necessary cut to the correct width. These could be floor sanded and stained or painted to match the old boards. Other boards in your photos look a kind of aged dull grey/red. Again sanded scaffold boards, a suitable dark red (mahogany?) stain followed by a good bees wax and then finally rub in a load of ash from the fire to get the aged grey look. The ash worked well in aging the repairs to my old pine kitchen table anyway.
The patina in the last photo is probably more difficult to achieve but perhaps you could get a decorator specialised in marbling to achieve something similar with the aid of a comb and a feather. Once the furniture and rugs are in you would probably never notice.

 

[masochists-r-us]

Hi,
I agree with the sentiments of the forum, but we were lucky enough to have only one floor that is 95% original and when we get to it will replace the odd pieces of modern timber with originals harvested from elsewhere in the house (without them we would have gone for reclaim to complete the floor despite the expense). Unfortunately, we also had two other floors, one of which was 45% original and the other about 30% plus an attic area with about 25% original timber. For these we did eventually lift the 30% and the 25% so that we could make up one complete floor. Not an easy task, but my other half is very good with wood and despite our fears that some damage was inevitable, I'm pleased to say there were no breakages and an infintessimal amount of wastage.
We're delighted with the final product which should be good for many years to come and pleased that we were able to utilise all the original timbers. Now all we need to decide is where to source new oak for the remaining floors, but may well give Wideplanks.com a call.