Old pine floors

9 years ago

I have old pine floors all over my ground floor - I hate them - particularly the gaps between the boards - I feel always dirty . Any advice on what I can do ? Should I fill between the boards with filler , sand & restrain & varnish ? Or would it be awful ?!

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Jo DP

9 years ago

one persons problem is another mans dream.

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Comments (15)

polly46
9 years ago
I had this problem.I ended up carpeting over them.I tried filling them messy and a lot of hassle.Re fitting the best option.Newly sand them and maybe wax them.
Lauren Awcock
9 years ago
We sanded, filled and varnished ours. Happy with the results.
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cinderellaslipper
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Pine has natural disinfectant properties, so try not to worry about the fluff trapped between the boards, just use a mild disinfectant, before sanding & sealing, perhaps using a stain to even out the colour, will help to hide the gaps?
PRO
Jarret Yoshida Design
9 years ago
Love your old floors. Be sure if you fill that it won't prevent boards from their natural and necessary contraction and expansion rates.
Tani H-S
9 years ago
Sanding is a soul destroying job. We have attempted it twice and its a lot of hard laborious work. Best advice if you really want to do it:-

1) hire a pro if you have the money.
2) hire a floor belt sander (not a drum sander) or you will not only get gouge marks in your floor but will be living in a dust cloud for months.
3) instead of filling gaps that will eventually crack or fall through, you can get some fab products that fill them for you. Is special foam strips you just push in the gap.
PRO
Iron Rose Home
9 years ago
Please do not cover such beautiful floor boards... I hate the idea of covering / painting rustic wood. Why not sand it down, and then wax and nourish it? It is good to seek the help of professional who can advise you on the gaps as well...
163 hrd
9 years ago
I have these old pine floorboards. The wood is so soft that the least pressure will dent and scar them. Rustic they certainly are. I'm replacing with a hard wood that will age more gracefully.
Emma N
9 years ago
We are in the process of filling our gaps with pine slithers (they cam in different widths) You can buy them online. You do suffer from bald/ red knees when you hammer them in and then need to chisel them down so they are flush with the rest of the floor but it really does help. What you can also order with the pine slithers is pine saw dust with resin - you mix the two up and can fill the really narrow gaps which the slithers don't fit into.

If you don't mind spending the time doing this I would recommend it yourself (especially if you're worried about costs), depending how big the surface is, and then have someone in to do the sanding. The varnishing you can also do you yourself with a normal paint roller.

We also recently had a quote for sanding and varnishing and I think it came to £500 for mid size living room and 3 m length hall.
Olivia McCarthy
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you all for great suggestions - from what I can gather it's a job for a pro ! I'll just have to bite the bullet & hire someone . Thank you all
Claire Hitchen
9 years ago
We had gappy pine floor boards in our old house. We filled the gaps with string and then painted the floor. It worked really well. Another, quirky way would be to used coloured string and then varnish over the top.
flopsycat1
9 years ago
Certainly looks very labor intensive, but can be done. Emmalein- love that you call them " slithers." Sounds like they just snake themselves into the joints.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAqUVK7JjDM
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boo2862
9 years ago
Wood is a natural fibre and will shrink and expand over the years filling will work for a while but the gaps will reappear in time as you walk over the flor if is weight bearing constantly and will also move so filling won't be a long term solution.
If you are really bothered by the germs and the look and the proposed work involved my be labour intensive and costly you could consider a new wood engineered surface, Karndean amongst others do some really good wood finnishes, this way you won't have any gaps to worry about and it's so easy to keep clean and new.
I hope this was helpful.
Kind regards
Barbara
Sam Hill
9 years ago
It can look quite nice if you sand them then paint them white.
Jonathan
9 years ago
people pay good money for the look you have. Don't devalue it by trying to change how it looks ....if it is not your taste then cover it up. As Boo2863 said there are some great vinyl floors that look like wood. Or an engineered wood floor might work, especially if you choose something more resilient such as bamboo.

Old pine floors

Jo DP

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polly46

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Old pine floors

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