Hi,
I need to replace a section of the floor and I'm wondering what kind of wood this is to come up with as close a match as possible:
Many thanks in advance,
Aaron Fude
Or Douglas fir. Since you are in Pennsylvania, most probably yellow pine.
will require a real wood pro to stain it correctly, like a pro furniture refinisher, not a floor guy. Cant you remove wood from maybe a closet.
Doubtful -- it's too soft to be practical for flooring.
He said it was "refinished" which I took to mean that it was sanded as well. If that's the case, then new wood may actually be a pretty good match -- but if it wasn't sanded, just stripped and revarnished, then as you say, new wood will not match, probably not even with stain.
I didnt read where he said it was refinished, it looked real yellow in the photo, I wonder if it was sanded completely, if it was its a bad photo but old wood is oxidised deep, he still may need a pro to pre stain and stain it with color
The photos are not clear so it could be almost any wood with a strong grain.
80 year old flooring will be very aged to the core, any sanding will only clean up the surface, it will never match the colour of new wood once you identify it. Also if you do identify it and if you can find any, new flooring will have different dimensions, different tongue and grooves and will not match your old flooring unless you have the equipment and talent to make your own.Looks like yellow pine lacquered .
New growth Douglas fir is but old growth was actually quite hard for a softwood.
My home was build in about 1925, and at that time is was common practice to use good hardwood in the "public" areas (first floor living and dining room and stairways, for example) but to use either pine or douglas fir in the "family" areas (upstairs bedrooms and attic). The douglas fir available at that time was a better grade wood than what you see today, unless you can find a source of old growth fir.
Gett> Hi,
Thanks for the recommendations. To clarify, yes the floor was sanded and poly-ed.
I was told by my floor refinisher that these floors would be to brittle to take out of a closet and move to the area of interest. Also, according to him, there's virtually no way of getting them out of the floor without busting circular saw blades on the nails. Finally, he's claim is that b/c it's tongue in groove, that these boards are "used-up" and cannot be re-used.
What do you guys think?
Thanks again,
Aaron
Aaron,
I own a farmhouse in Eastern PA, and the second floor and above all have yellow pine original floors. The downstairs has maple, which was redone back in the 40's after removing the entire original floors, not sure why. It has been in our family since the 1700's. My grandfather had it redone for some unknown reason. I think when they had the house replumbed and rewired for safety as there were two small fires in the electrical outlets in the floor. What I like are the grates in the floor, you can look down from the
3rd floor and see the kitchen 2 stories below! The other one in the back of the house makes a good laundry chute to the basement! You can get yellow pine today that should match, I was able to a few years back but make sure you go to a reputable wood dealer. My yellow pine came from the southeast as I needed over 1000bf. I wanted to finish the attic in the same wood and replace some damaged floor areas, to day I cannot tell where we patched in the newer wood in the floor. At first it was noticable but in a couple of years, you could not distinguish the two. Get a good qualified wood floor person in your area to do the job right the first time. I did my attic space and used it for practice, the subfloor was random width pine with gaps up to 3/4". The attic is now my daughter's play area.Jon
I bought a house with oak flooring that had been put down in the '40s. Various renovations had been done which had seen the flooring removed and replaced with plywood in places.
I had a flooring guy come in and refinish the wood, and asked him to fix the plywood areas. He pulled up some of the old stuff, added new and replaced everything to the point that I couldn't tell where the plywood had been.
In pulling up the old, he sacrificed a few planks starting out but was able to replace them with stock - something i don't think you can do because of the age.
However, my point is that t/g flooring can be pulled up and put down elsewhere. You lose a bit, but are able to match what's there. I'd go for the closets as others have suggested.
According to Aaron Fude :
Once you get an edge free, it's usually fairly easy to get flooring up without doing too much damage to the boards. Depends on remaining board thickness, wood condition and using the right pry bar/technique.
The trick is more getting the nails out or at least cut so they don't interfere with re-installation without damaging the boards that much.
Busting saw blades on nails? He's not heard of demolition blades? Gee.
Chances are he's trying to hint it's not worth the expense of him doing it.
Out of curiousity, why do you think it's pine/fir?
Yes, it being in an attic is suggestive of that. On the other hand, it's narrow-strip flooring, and back in those days that tended to be the "better" stuff and I'd expect it to be hardwood.
The picture isn't all that good. The grain pattern is suggestive of Douglas Fir, oak, ash or even chestnut. In Pennsylvania back then it's _highly_ unlikely to be Doug Fir.
I'm not at all familiar with Yellow Pine - doesn't grow here. So that may be my problem ;-)
Eastern white pine, especially wide plank (6+ inches), is common in farmhouses and "back rooms" in houses of this vintage and older, but its grain pattern is _much_ less distinct, so it can't be that.
I've never seen white pine in narrow strip flooring. Is it common in yellow?
White pine is softer than Doug Fir, but still very common as flooring, even new. Depends on what you want.
We plan on redoing our kitchen and dining room with white pine. Mind you, it's been sitting on the bottom of the Ottawa river for more than 100 years. Old growth to begin with, it's "treatment" has hardened it even more.
If you have it in the closet use it, So buy him a 7$ blade, or maybe he realy does not want the job, call around.
Mon, Oct 22, 2007, 1:19pm (EDT+4) snipped-for-privacy@milmac.com (Doug=A0Miller) doth sayeth: Doubtful -- it's too soft to be practical for flooring.
Doesn't matter. People used to use what they had. I've seen floors made from soft woods, pine, etc. They didn't take a heap of years to wear seriously, but that's what was available at the time.
JOAT "I'm an Igor, thur. We don't athk quethtionth." "Really? Why not?" "I don't know, thur. I didn't athk."
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