Where can I get 'old'-looking flooring?

[hgreaves]

Hi all

We are replacing the stairs in our c.1600 cottage and are looking for in-character wood to make the treads and risers from.

The appearance we are looking for --- to be in keeping with the existing top step, other exposed floorboards nearby and our personal tastes --- is a rough textured surface and slightly irregular appearance, in contrast to the perfectly flat and smooth sawn boards that it is easy to buy in any old DIY place.

We have thought of buying old reclaimed floorboards, but these are expensive and we are wondering whether there are cheaper and/or better ways of getting the desired effect - e.g. well-used and stained scaffolding planks, ordinary new flooring boards treated in some way to look old...

Does anyone out there have any suggestions or tips??

Here are a few photos of the existing top step and the nearby exposed floor:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anagriph/sets/72157626304883031/

Thanks folks!
Hilary.

 

[AMc]

I would probably bite the bullet and pick up a few reclaimed boards or go skip hunting in areas with lots of victorian houses and see what you can cadge.
You could also try a wanted ad on your local Freecycle/Freegle group.

I've seen new boards 'distressed' with a hessian bag full of nails liberally whacked into them - probably on an old changind rooms - but I suspect you could end up wasting a lot of time and money on that approach to end up with something looking a bit pants.

I wouldn't recommend old scaffold boards as they may be contaminated with all sorts of industrial chemicals and they may be impossible to get to a splinter free finish.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Hi Hilary

Please forgive me if I have read your post and interpreted your pictures wrongly, but it reads, and looks, as if you're taking out a really nice characterful set of treads and risers and then aiming to replace them with a really nice, characterful set of treads and risers. :?
Please clarify why the staircase is getting the chop!

Toby Newell, on here, would do wonders with this. I have no personal connection with him but have seen his work with old flooring, and mocking up reclaimed boards to match with very much older ones. However it's a costly business, as you can imagine.

 

[skier-hughes]

I'm with Joce, most of us would kill for those boards, I'm assuming you have something not photographed that you want to replace to look like these ones?

 

[Moo]

Are they dangerously worm-eaten?

I ask the question because if they're structurally sound I think it would be a criminal act to destroy them.

They're gorgeous!

For goodness sake, keep them and congratulate yourselves on your good fortune!!!

 

[Flyfisher]

I can detect a consensus emerging on this one.

Hilary, perhaps there is a good reason for replacing those boards and stairs that you have not mentioned but, frankly, your photographs look pretty good to me. Why do you wish to replace them with new bits of old, or old-looking wood?

 

[JoceAndChris]

But maybe the top step is the only one like that, and the rest is MDF. :?

If so, a cheaper option would be to cover the unsightly treads and risers in some sort of attractive stair carpet, coir or rush or whatever is it.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Those pics were meant to show what she wants to match up to. The stair picture is nice tread above and horrid tread below. you can just see it.

 

[hgreaves]

Hi all

Sorry if the original message wasn't clear! Yes - as the last reply says, we are keeping the top step and the bedroom floorboards which we DO appreciate!

It is the remainder of the stairs that we are replacing (they were made from modern rubbish, put in by the cottage-owner before us, all like the bottom one that is visible in the first stairs photo, although that photo may not quite do justice to how out-of-character they are). We don't want to go for carpet as we really like the exposed wood look, but we want to get as close to the 'old' feel as we can.

Sorry for the confusion... any more advice on wood sources massively appreciated!

Hilary.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Sorry Hilary, I apologise profusely. Have you trawled through the sites on here and made enquiries?
http://www.salvo.co.uk/

 

[Feltwell]

We have thought of buying old reclaimed floorboards, but these are expensive and we are wondering whether there are cheaper and/or better ways of getting the desired effect - e.g. well-used and stained scaffolding planks, ordinary new flooring boards treated in some way to look old...

Hi Hilary

Old floorboards are I think your best bet. They're not always that expensive - where have you looked? A lot of salvage yards round here (although they prefer the term "reclamation") are rather posh affairs, with Range Rovers and Mercs in the car park and lots of affluent customers wandering around paying more than they need to. For something commonly available like floorboards I know a couple of much more down-to-earth (grotty!) places that sell them for about half the price of the "posh" yards.

I bought an artic load of bricks a while back from a very "utilitarian" yard in Stoke on Trent, for about half the price of very similar bricks that I'd seen at a much posher yard down near Cannock. The Stoke ones had been cleaned up better as well.

Whereabouts are you? Post up where you are and someone on here may have a suggestion. Failing that, just shop around. Prices do vary a lot. The slightly more down at heel yards tend to be more receptive to cash as well - cheques or cards sometimes cost about 20% more for some strange reason..... And if you've got a posh car, park it round the corner :wink:

 

[Flyfisher]

Ah. That'll teach me not to skim-read posts.

Glad we sorted out the confusion though. Right, carry on.

 

[Schoolmarm]

:lol:

 

[skier-hughes]

I bought an artic load of bricks a while back from a very "utilitarian" yard in Stoke on Trent, for about half the price of very similar bricks that I'd seen at a much posher yard down near Cannock. The Stoke ones had been cleaned up better as well.

Cawarden by any chance? Great choice, but oh so expensive, I use Rayson reclamation, much smaller affair just outside of Penkridge, but choice is limited.

 

[Penners]

I don't see any alternative to shopping around the salvo yards, as suggested above.

 

[Toby Newell]

Hi Hilary

You do not say where you are.

There are a number of points to take into account.

The first one being having your cake and eating it as they say. I apologise for being blunt but if you want nice things, well they usually cost more than less nice things. So reclaimed floorboards are normaly more expensive than new wood.

The key is in giving yourself the time to research all the possibilities and to be prepared to travel. The trade off here is that in London, for example, I could have gone to Lasco's and paid, I don't know upwards of £60 per square metre for 7 in wide pine boards, or, do a bit of researching, and travel 200 miles round trip including £60 deisel to a Colchester demolition company yard and pay £22 cash per square metre. Total cost per square metre inc fuel, £28 and half a day. A colleague of mine bought the most sensational 1 inch thick Victorian yellow pine boards originally from a Lancashire mill floor for £20 per square metre, although he did travel to Manchester to get them and bought 100 sqm. I laid some of these in a house in South London and they look stunning.

You really just have to be lucky, the more patient you are and the harder you look, the 'luckier' you will get.

Photo Analysis

1. Little softwood (pine) would likely have survived since the 1600s without being severely munched. I did a 1600s cottage once with 18 in pit sawn pine and only about 30% of the pine was original, I saved all of it, but it was 'severely munched'.

2. From the grain in photo 1 (hard to see) the tread looks like elm. Presumably then you are looking for old elm treads or window cills or floorboards, anything that is old and has warped.

3. From Photo 1 the second step is obviously pine, you don't want pine. I presume that your beams are either elm or oak/elm too.

4. Photo 5 shows board A on the left to be dimensionally patinated in that either it is severely munched and has many exposed woodworm galleries and/or has a horrible crinkled effect due to several decades of bituminous stain followed by paint, followed by what looks like varnish which means the last layers of finish look like they are trying to crawl away... the board in the middle if I look carefully has straight heart grain in the centre which looks like pine. Photo 3 clearly shows the threshold though to be elm.

5. It is possible that you have an elm floor with some pine replacements and that the stairs may have once been elm but are now predominantly pine. Therefore you want to get some elm.

From the photos (last photo no 5) it is unclear whether your floor boards are old or have been replaced. The board on the left hand side looks like an old elm/pine board which either has some worm damage and/or the paint is crinkled, presumably because it has reacted with an old bituminious stain underneath. The board in the middle looks a lot newer.

When you say you want 'rough textured' er you dont mean rough sawn as you would hurt your feet and your cat wouldnt like it either, their feet being very sensitive (they love polished wood) you obviously mean for the wood to have a dimensional patination ie that it is not flat, ie slightly cupped/warped. Also you may desire some worm damage. You can only get this with old boards. You will have to hunt around.

If you polish up your elm and it does look stunning then you can always stain down newer elm, it colours in perfectly (please see my website for Mark's 500 year old pit sawn elm I hand sanded colour matched and polished, http://www.floorsanding-uk.com/Gallery.html its the 9th set of pictures down, even a high res picture does not do Mark's floor justice) If you want to keep the horrible decades of repeated coating with various amounts of gunk hiding 90% of the grain look, then that's fine, it's even easier to match! Just liberally coat with brown/black gunk and add a crackle glaze to the surface. People often mistake old and dirty as being traditional, it's all a matter of aesthetics. If you accept that some homes were lovingly polished and waxed for centuries and some were coated less sympathetically at some point then you will realise there is a differnce between a very hard, smooth, dark subtle sheen with patches of mellow grain showing through and your floor which appears to be covered in gunk. (If you have ever seen a nice condition 1600s old oak coffer you will see what I mean) Sorry if I appear disparaging, its the gunk I am disparaging, not the elm underneath which is pure 'gold' covered in...

Your main aim is to get wood which has moved and is not dimensionally flat, elm, obviously, would be best. To get the 'broken edge effect really requires years of walking up and down with hobnailed boots, so if you can actually get treads or more likely old window cills (and cut them from the back so that you retain the front, irregular and hopefully worn edge) all the better.

Look around in old junk shops, there is a lot of old elm about in old furniture, you may be able to caniblise some of this, any old elm should have darked enough to have a nice patination.

Finally what I would say is please excuse the spelling, Im tired, you need some old elm and please consider removing the gunk on your floors (if they are mostly elm) the 500 year old elm floor I did is still probably one of the nicest if not THE nicest peice of wood I have ever worked on in 25 years. Centuries old elm looks, in my opinion totally stunning, you are very very lucky! (if it hasn't been majorly replaced with pine and gunkified to hide the difference, a major reason for 'gunk application' ie it traditionally being easier than colour matching and lovingly polishing the repairs and gunkers are cheaper than polishers... althought these days, unfortunately, not by much) If you want help on how to restore your wood yourself please see my two articles in the finding out section or whatever it's now called.

I aim to do several pages on listed building restoration on my site in the near future. Quickly if you like the gunky look, but also like the polished look, then (no, not 'Fight!') then try cleaning off all the gunk, coating in two coats of shellac (sanding inbetween with P240 lubricated silicon carbide sandpaper, 3m trimite or sia lubrasil are good) when dry after a few days, sand again (the elm should be almost ridiculously smooth) and apply another thin coat of shellac with some lamp black or vegtable black pigment mixed in, dirt isn't totally black although much dirt traditionally was soot based which is why vegtable or carbon black (soot) is so appropriate, try adding a small amount of burnt (Turkey) umber and/or raw (green) umber pigment, this will take the edge off the blackness and give a more authentic 'dirt' layer. Wait another week for it to harden off then wax with 000 wire wool (not 0000 as normal) and beeswax/carnuba wax. Some of the Black pigmented shellac will rub off gently on the exposed high spots and will wear off over the months and years even more, wax every year and soon you will have a mellow sheen with a dark overall effect with deep hazlenut/orange honey tones peeping through as the top layer wears off, this would look more similar to how a 1600s floor would have looked if it had been looked after properly. You can't do this with a Homebase paintbrush, you will need to buy and 'set' your own Zorino French Polishing 'mop' a number 16 coating mop will be required and probably is around 40 to 50 pounds, but they are nice and you can hand them to your grand children. Infact investing in a squirrel mop, although over 100 pounds will give a nicer finish as the zorino brush will take a few weeks of use to soften up, but it is infinately better than a paint brush anyway. Don't be tempted to use any 'stain' out of a tin. It is possible although far from being traditional (osmo is effectively a cleverly marketed 'longspar' ie high oil content varnish with substitute chemicals for the polyurethane element) a coloured oil like osmo black may give an ok effect as some of it will rub off over time but that may look too 'artificial'.

Good luck, Toby.

I know I could have just said. Elm. Old Elm. Look out for it. This anorak has too many pockets...

 

[robgil]

I have the same problem but I am going to use new oak on the stairs , it will match up in a couple of hundred years or so. I also have floors both oak and elm that need restoring and will be entrusting them to David Gunton http://www.wideboards.com/ , ive spoken to him a few times now and am really impressed , first thoughts might be ouch thats not cheap but to have it done properly and to know your are getting a quality job done rarely is.

 

[Toby Newell]

He obviously looks like a craftsman so you will be supporting the few of us genuine ones left. Much better to restore than to replace and no need to wait hundreds of years! Get some old reclaimed oak and water stain down. If you don't want to go to a specialist shop just put some old teabags into a bucket with some boiling hot soda water and leave for a week, then sieve. No need even for vwalnut crystals. Finish with a coat or two of 4lb button polish and then wax.

Toby

 

[robgil]

I dont mind the wait. My old cottage is a hodge podge of repairs anyway so a few un-maching stairs will look more in place than out.

 

[Toby Newell]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Oak patinates fast, at least in sunlight, rig up some mirrors and you should be fine in around 50 years or so. Alternatively it is quite possible with a bit of detective work to find some beautiful solid quarter sawn English oak tables in junk shops with knackered finish/legs either Edwardian or 1920's/30's. Measuring tape, set square and a site saw or a bit of elbow grease and Viola!. Super nice colour interesting oak with lovely medullary rays.

Sorry but I find most new oak, even the european stuff quite boring, unless particularly pippy or quartersawn. I think for me it's the figure which is more important than the colour, after all, as you say, the colour will eventually tone down in a century or two. I'm not sure though, that they will ever find a way to turn quicker grown less mature flat sawn heart grain timber into older quarter sawn! However namy centuries you wait. Just my opinion mind!

Toby