Restore Old Floor Boards - with a twist...

[BigCal]

Hi Everyone... I'm new here...

We bought a house earlier in the year that currently has an aweful tiled floor - the living area floor is divided into two different tiles, 1 blue tile and 1 peach tile... it really is disgusting... so we want to do something about it...

The original house has cypress floor boards (btw, is cypress just a different spelling of cyprus or are they different timbers?) the tiling job was bodgy to say the best and the tiles will be very easy to remove from this...

Here comes the but... there is approx. 10 sqm of the living area that is an addition to the original structure and this has particle board under the tiles... About half the dining area is like this... Also under the wet area's in the house is compressed fibre cement, so i presume under the kitchen to some extent is compressed fibre...

The lounge/dining and kitched are all essentially one area, and we would like to have one floor throughout if possible. We would prefer floor boards to re-tiling again.... so what are our options?

All help/suggestions/comments more than welcome!

Thank you
Callum

[brynk]

gday bigcal

you'll never match the existing timber even if you go out & buy the same stuff, because it will invariably have aged differently! therefore, if you decide to keep the pine & rip out the 'yellow-tongue' (which is the chip-board floor cladding) then you could use a different timber in this area & make a feature of it.

option 2 would be to lay new board straight down over the top, or a combination of the 2 would be to rip it all up & lay new stuff down.

it is unlikely that there will be fc-sheet in the kitchen.

r's brynk

[BigCal]

Thanks brynk,

I'll get under the house and check out the kitchen (ick, its currently drying out after the previous owner decided to board it all up!), I am farily certain there is fc sheet in there though...

The problem with using a different timber is that its only a portion of the room, so half would be 1 timber and half another timber... I think I would be more likely to remove some of the existing boards and intersperse the original boards with the new boards so its kinda blended - if that makes sense

Also if I rip out the yellow tongue (and fc-sheet if there is any) I'm going to have to do under the kitchen cupboards arn't I? how much of a drama is that? do i have to completely remove the cupboards to do it and then put them back in, or is there a sneaky way to get around it?

Also my main reason for not wanting to lay over the top just comes down to $$ our total floor area for the boards is around 55sqm, and the problem area is only around 10sqm...

Thanks Again
Callum

[Ian Wells]

blending the boards is a great idea , but you can always "tone" the new ones to match with a bit of stain and patination ie,dents and scratches

[bluemountains]

Hi Bigcal.

I took out a huge chimney in a house that had cypress floors, filled the area in with new boards, then added an extra room (also new cypress).
When finished had it all sanded and polished. Took about a year and you could not tell there was a difference unless you did a close inspection.
The odd rug to confuse the eye would help.
Cheers
Bob

[BigCal]

Thanks for the replies guys,

Bob did you use brand new boards? Only ask because I have read there's a quite a good chance of picking up 'pre loved' boards at recycling yards... especially as the current ones here are 100mm wide boards - aparently they were quite popular back in the day - only going off what I have read...

My biggest concern at this stage isn't so much getting it to look uniform, its more what to do with the area thats not currently floor boards... we are not wanting to spend lots of $$ I am willing to do it myself if its within my capabilities... removing the dining area yellow tongue and putting boards down isn't a big deal - in that I don't see there being anything out of the ordinary to deal with... but the kitchen - if it is fc-sheet and what to do under the kitchen cupboards is where I am going to struggle i think...

Thanks again
Callum

[bluemountains]

Yes I used new boards.
Cypress becomes very brittle with age and is rarely taken up without damage.
So rather than muck about I went with new.

As to the kitchen. Stop putting it off and get uder the house and look.
I guess you could cut around the cupboards (reciprication saw would do a near flush job) and only replace what you have to.
There is always a way.
Cheers
Bob

[BigCal]

ok ok, i went and had a look, brynk is right, its all yellow tongue... so thats good news...

Next thing I will need to look at is how the cupboards line up with the structural timbers (sorry can remember the correct terminology is it joists?) as the foot print of the cupboard is quite narrow and runs in the same direction as the timber under the floor boards... i guess if I am unlucky and there isn't timber right under the cupboards I would need to reinforce between the joists? before cutting around the cupboards...?

Cheers
Callum

[brynk]

luckily your joists are running in the same direction as the long axis of the cupboard. drill a couple of holes along the sacrificial side of the cupboard before you go under the house, this will let you know where your nearest support is & where your new joists will need to go.

bluemountains' suggestion of using a reciprocating (aka demolition saw) is the way to go! make your cut as close as you can get it to the cupboard, then support the cut edge of the remaining yellow tongue with a new joist. once you've made the cut & installed your first new joist, you can plane & sand the edge of the remaining back to the cupboard & no-one will ever know! put a second joist adjacent to this to rest your floorboards on.

be sure to take some photos so we can all live vicariously through your successes & tribulations

[BigCal]

Excellent, Sounds like with some carefull planning I should be able to get it done... I'll have to research every step of the way as it is all new to me...

I'm thinking I should probably view it as a 2 part project...

1st step, lift the tiles on the yellow tongue, add any new joists required for kitchen support and lay the new floor boards...

2nd step, lift the rest of the tiles on the existing floor boards, repair any damaged area (i'm a bit suss about what might be around the shower - if there has been any leaks in the last 25 years!...) and finally sand, polish etc

how does that sound for a rough plan?

It'll be a 2008 project now - which is good time for plenty more research - will drive my wife crazy... I'll take plenty of pics!!

[BigCal]

Another quick question... Any idea what I would expect to pay psqm for 100mm wide cypress boards?

Can't find much info on timber prices on the web...

Also, the house is 25-30 years old, so the floor boards wouldn't be tongue and groove would they? does it make a difference if tongue and groove is mixed with non tongue and groove?

[Larry McCully]

Can i suggest something... When i have had situations that needed matching up of new boards to meet old ones , i have gone to the timber recycle yard or in the good old days we called it the demolition yard, i was able to sourse the same spiece of timber needed and used aged boards. The result was a perfect colour match without having to stain. I used old boards. It took a extra hour os so to clean up the tounge and grove, but it wasnt to hard. Yes cypress is brittle, but with carfull selecting of the new boards , i was able to get what i needed to do the job done.

Or the other option is to install brand new boards over the entire area, including the existing timber area. You then have the option to change the look of your floor. I have seen a few jobs where the builder has put in a different spicies, but it looks dickie every time, i would not do it. it will ruin your floor, it looks like a patch job. Either get old boards and but em in os change the specie.
If you put new boards in and stain them down to match the old ones, You will get stroppie in about 12 months time. The timber under the stain will darken down naturally and with the added stain , ooopps its all to dark, you will have a reverse of what you didnt want in the first place.

[BigCal]

Thanks Larry, you can suggest anything you want, I'm all ears at the moment!!

Laying all new boards is probably out of the question at this point... but I am dead keen on patching the yellow tongue area's and polishing up the existing boards...

With the brittleness of cypress is there anything out of the ordinary to look for when selecting boards? once the project is a definite go ahead i will start visiting 'recycling' yards, have plenty of under cover space here to store boards for a while...

[Larry McCully]

look for boards that have the tounge and grove in tact. If there is a little damage to the tounge or if the bottom of the grove may be damaged a little bit , then thats fine. As long as the top surface and there is about at least 80% of the tounge and grove still on it then it will work. Look for boards that have had no previous sanding. most of the boards will have nail holes, but thats ok. A little bit of timber mate putty will fix that.Make sure that they are the same width also. There is a place in sydney called IRONWOOD, they have a good selection of preused boards in very good condition.02 98181166

[BigCal]

Getting a bit further into my research... quick question - having never dealt with "lineal" meters before... am I correct in thiking that this is just a measure of the length of timber - regardless of width or depth of the timber?

So I have 100mm cypress boards... which means 10 lineal meters to each square meter that I need... I need 8.8 square meters so that means I need 88 lineal meters? might as well make it a round 100 lineal meters for wastage?

Also for recycled boards, is $6 a lineal meter expensive?

Cheers