Floorboards

[burn]

Hi,

Seeking yet more advice?

We have removed three inner walls with the intent of making two bigger rooms out of four much smaller.

Where we removed the walls from, now has a gap where the floorboards end. For some reason, the floor boards were not butted up against the baseboard (for the studs) but had 20 to 30 degree cuts. Thus leaving between 70 to 90 mm gaps between two sets of floorboards. See attached.

There are two floor bearers (80mm centres) where the stud baseboard was removed from.

Now, should I just rout off the ends of the floorboards to make them square and place in 90mm x 19mm pine.

OR

Place in 70mm x 19mm pine leaving jaggered gaps - perhaps filling them with something.

We will be placing underlay then carpet over it all?

Lastly, I am not sure of the timber the floorboards are made from. It looks pine-like (lots of knots) and was installed circa 1963. If it was hardwood, would placing pine to fill the gap be a bad thing? Would I be better using hardwood, be the existing boards soft or hardwood.?

[silentC]

I'd be inclined to trim the ends with a circular saw and then rip a board to fit, with a bit of play to make it easier to put it in and allow some room for movement. Much easier than fiddling around with filler. This assumes that doing so will leave the cut ends sitting on the joist, not hanging in space. If trimming them will leave them shy of the joist adjacent to where the bottom plate was, you'll either need to leave them as is, or you'll need to put something underneath to stop the bounce.

Sounds like cypress pine which was pretty common in floorboards in the 50's and 60's. Shouldn't make any difference what you use anyway if you're going to cover it up with carpet. Here's a thought: why don't you do a nice job of it and get it sanded and polished?