rebuild my stupid living room floor

so when we bought the house 7 years ago the first order of business was pull all the carpet and hope for good floors below. the small bedroom sucked, the master was pine plank subfloor, and the living room was last. started in one corner revealing some decent oak with good character. when i got 10 feet in(room is 28 feet long) i was devastated by the sight of plywood. 7 feet across the entire room was plywood, from a previous structural repair. also, the oak was only stained and finished around the edges because depression era or whatever. so i blended the stain in, put some semi gloss poly on the whole thing, and put carpet in the middle. since then the small bedroom has hickory engineered wood, the master has 3/4" nail down oak, and the living room was left alone. fast forward a dog and 2 kids later, i've been through 3 pieces of carpet(good thing we're a flooring company). rescue cat, wife brings cat in house because she fears it'll get hit by a car, cat brings fleas in, i freak out and rip out the carpet and have a tough decision to make. had the carpet supplier get me an end of the roll cut of awesome stuff, then said screw it i'm going all in.

so this week after work every day, this happened.

in GRM forum fashion, i used one box leftover from the bedroom, 2 boxes from one customer's house, one box from another, and only had to buy one bundle to finish it up. just put the poly down, waiting for things to dry now. have to redo my tile around the fireplace because it had to come up for the plywood to get removed and new flooring to get woven in.

Wow, that looks awesome! That's a bunch of work there. Looks great!

Good thing were a flooring company he says. Damn good one too judging by the work.

Color me impressed. That looked like a LOT of work. So you cut into the old and fit in new at random lengths and sanded?

vwcorvette wrote: Color me impressed. That looked like a LOT of work. So you cut into the old and fit in new at random lengths and sanded?

exactly. took as many of the old ones back to a seam as possible but when they were very long i cut them and did butt joints. i've never done a floor weave of this magnitude, usually it's only a few pieces for a repair. somewhere along the line i became hardwood guy. we do not do refinishing, only new installs. i did 1000+ square feet of brazilian tigerwood(some kind of cherry with lots of character and black stripes) a few weeks ago and my elbow is still mad at me. most people prefer a brand new floor, i prefer the character of the old stuff that's been in the room for over 50 years. i purposely left some gaps to match the old, and only sanded far enough to get the weaved part blended. there is about 8 feet on either end of the room that didn't get sanded or recleared. after stuff cures i'll take a scouring pad and blend the line in the clear.

i really don't do refinishing work, this is only the 2nd floor i've sanded in 20 years. the last was 17 years ago, and i had to carry the sander up to the 3rd floor.

now i need to get it cleaned up and put back together for my daughter's 2nd birthday party saturday. just got back from blowes with some new baseboards.

my wife is looking at area rugs on wayfair right now i don't want to cover any of it up but she wants a little 5x7 one in front of the couch

That is gorgeous work. Well done. For my curiosity, what's the putty/glue looking stuff?

In reply to patgizz:

You could seriously make a living traveling from GRMer's home to GRMer's home based on the quality of work you do...as if you don't have enough work already!

that is indeed some filler. the original floor wasn't exactly in a straight line side to side, not much in this house is unless i've redone it. i was cheating some bow out of their pattern to keep things lined up so that the last few rows were parallel to the front of the fireplace and didn't look crooked there. if it were a new install i'd have started in the center and worked out both ways in a crooked room but sometimes you just play the cards you're dealt. also had to fill some holes where i had to face nail a few things. stuff is drying nicely, house barely stinks anymore. i sent my wife and kids to target and to eat while i did the stain and poly, then we went to lowes and home depot to kill a few hours so nobody was breathing fumes. i used my auto paint respirator to apply and kept the dog outside all day so he wouldn't get high.

used varathane(rustoleum) stain that uses a soy oil base, and is ready to topcoat in an hour. i left it for 2 then cleared with minwax floor semi gloss poly. the minwax stain isn't ready to topcoat for 8 hours, and it means it. if you apply poly before it's ready you get bubbles in the clear. think i've found a good combo here, they worked well together.