sealing floorboards before painting

[andyv]

I rather like the floorboards in my kitchen as they show evidence of

200 years of alterations. I want to leave them exposed and painted. I don't want to strip and varnish them as I think they are too rough to get looking good.

These are tongue and groove in three different widths and running at strange angles to one another. I've spent some time repairing various sections which had large gaps but I now need to seal up the cracks between the boards as a lot of the tongues have been damaged, but what to use that will make them airtight and paintable and look OK? Would decorator's filler from a mastic gun work? I'm concerned that anything I do might be very difficult to correct once it's done.

I'm prepared to experiment with different techniques on the floor in the loft.

[ransley]

I would just use painters caulk in a tube, floors expand-contract and move, anything hard will pop out.

[ransley]

"decorators filler-masticgun" OK, over her its called caulk and a caulk gun.

[stuart noble]

The Screwfix No Nonsense wood filler isn't bad. Gloopy enough to get into small cracks, and a different consistency to the caulks I've used