Another pic

.85 cents a sf is what I think they ended up costing me.

Love those boards! They look great. I wouldn't add the black nails, though. I think that would detract from the wonderful look you have now. I am green with envy and I am sure those boards would look terrific in my kitchen. :) Nice work, Beth!

Oh my but those are beautiful. Love 'em!

I think you nailed it ( no pun intended). can't wait to see the finished rooms.

I'm hoping it's not too obvious how I did it. I'm in hopes people will assume it's either actual antique wood that's been in the house since it was built (1913) or it's some fancy smancy barnwood floor I had put in.

I would skip the nails.

I have the real deal: old pine, T&G wide board that varies between 8" and 21" wide. It extends under the partition walls of rooms because this is a timber-framed, 19th c building. That means in some of my "lesser" rooms I have a line of boards ending at the same spot all across the room. My boards are nailed not only at the end, but with a pair of nails above every floor joist. The spacing of the floor joists varies from one section of the house to the other. The minimum is 21", the widest is 27". The nails are old cut nails with flat, square heads and they were driven down to be slightly below the plain of the floor. (Slightly annoying because this means little places where dust can collect.) Rose-headed nails that protrude slightly above the plane of the floor are a decorative conceit when you've got fairly narrow,even-sized boards like yours as they wouldn't have still been in use by the time millwork had advanced enough to create even-sized boards.. A floor made with "barn boards" (or even the wide pine boards like mine) would have been intended to be concealed by floor cloths and ingrain "carpets" orginally.

My boards have never had any finish, but show clear evidence of the ingrain carpets. (Also the 20th c staple holes where modern vinyl was stapled down, alas, leaving litle rust stains .)

One of my floors (room will be my kitchen) is so badly stained from the early 20th use of kerosene heaters that I have decided that I will simply paint it, and paint a "floor cloth" or faux marble checkerboard design on it.

I will keep an eye out for your reveal - it looks great so far!

L.

Mine are actually .... plain ole cheap plywood. I refused to go with carpet or vinyl because it's a 100 year old house and I have my heart set on preserving the look as much as possible. I can't afford to do it totally accurate, but I'm trying to get the "look" anyway.

I had Lowes rip it in 8" strips for me and then we just laid it out and shot it down with a staple gun. I layered grey stain, whitewash, more grey stain and finally very very lightly tinted varnish (tinted with a couple ounces of walnut stain). It's very multi colored in appearance between the various grey and brown shades.

It will get at least 3 more, hopefully 4, coats of clear satin varnish.

I'm tickled to have done both rooms plus the pantry for less than $250.

Here's a pic of it going down. Please excuse the apricot walls - those are soon to be a dark olive.

I love antique floors, and painted ones can be very lovely. I actually almost painted mine but then I took a chance and went with red cabinets and the barn wood color just seemed to be what the floors need to be.

I wish I'd have varied my plank size rather than doing all 8" but I'm not going to should of would have now, it's down and that's one huge project I can almost mark complete.

They look terrific and you're going to be surprised how well they hold up. I used to own a log cabin in the woods and I painted all the wood floors a driftwood gray. Had them for years and years.

Great job! I think they will look even better as they get some wear, a few scuffs and dings will add to the effect.

Beth,

That's plywood?

Oh my goodness, it looks so nice - I would never have guessed and I think you've created a fantastic DIY floor.

I hope you don't mind if I steal it for my woodroom. What kind and thickness of plywood did you use?

I hope my post didn't seem like I was bragging on my old floors. I find it very useful to have detailed descriptions of actual, intact features of old houses because it helps me clarify what is orginal (175 years), and what is just old (75-100 years). It can be hard to sort this out. And much seemingly old stuff is decidly mixed-era.

I am planning on adding a "floor" to my wood storage room. We still heat only with wood, so it's an important, fairly large room - 13 X 19 feet. At the moment it still has its original floor which is just rammed earth. Yup, I live in house with a dirt floor in some rooms -which goes to show there all levels of homes on GW!. I'm OK with the dirt floor, but I hate it that it is about one and half tall steps down from level of the first floor so every load of wood I bring in requires a couple of giant steps as I stagger up from the lower level carrying wood many times per day in the cold seasons.

My plan is to lay down a layer of vapor retarder and cover it with a layer of woven landscape fabric to protect the vapor retarder. Now comes the weird part: part of my wood room has an old, now-unused shallow cistern about eight feet in diameter and running partly under a partition wall that divides the wood room from another service room. It has been claimed for as long I've been here (25 years) as a hibernaculum for a couple of dozen ribbon, milk and black snakes. They slither in the fall and lie doggo all winter. It's always an exciting day in the mid-Spring when they wake up and start to leave: Snakes on a Plane, the Home version. I don't want to disturb their lives, and I'm not exactly sure what conditions in this space make it useful for them, so I want only a few easily- reversible changes.

So for my "floor" I plan to lay down two layers of wooden shipping pallets bridging over the old cistern and hopefully not disturbing their snake-y world. Over the pallets I planned to screw down plywood, but now that I've seen your floor, I think plywood "barn boards" will be prettier.

Looking forward to seeing more of your project! (Maybe more great ideas to adopt??)

L.

Brilliant!

What a fantastic idea!! Is your plywood good one side? or did you have to sand for splinters?

Nope and Nope. It's the cheapest stuff I could find (3/8" basic grade, nothing fancy at all). The only sanding I did was to lightly sand where there was writing to remove the ink. We laid it best side up, regardless of whether there was writing or not, then just sanded off the writing.

I wanted it rough and rugged so it looked old. Lots of boards have burrs, small splits (not all the way, just a layer) and knots. After I got all the color just right, I went over this morning and used the leftover tinted varnish and a 1" brush and gently "dripped" more of it in the largest of cracks and knots for a darkening and enhancing effect.

Next will be a clear coat, 48 hours of drying, then a very light once over with the pole sander.

Honestly, even at this point with no sanding, they don't feel that bad. Sure they aren't glass smooth, but they don't feel uncomfortable under foot. I worked barefoot this morning (forgot to bring my socks) and it didn't bother me at all.

I'm doing at least 3, hopefully 4, clear coats and will sand between, but only very lightly.

I'm confident the end result will feel much like the textured "hand scraped" looking stuff you buy. It will be FAR from perfect, but that's the goal.

I suppose if I had a small baby, or was still in the baby making stage, I might have been a little more concerned with this but my youngest is 5 and doesn't crawl around. Any floor playing she does is on a play mat or area rug so it's not a concern for us.

I mostly just winged it. I really thought I'd end up painting it or whitewashing it, but the more I looked at pics of barnwood floors and my love of red things (not shiny new red, but older, colonial type reds) the red cabinet/barnwood floor idea really clicked.

I stained, then restained, did this, did that. I figured heck, if I don't like it, I can always paint it. So far it just gets better and better at each step and I'm loving it.

My hardwood professional friend looked at me like I had three heads when I told him what I was going to do. He said, ok, well as a temp solution I guess it'll do but you'll be calling me in a year or two to help replace it. Today he saw it in person and totally freaked out on how amazing it looks. You can't tell it's plywood if you didn't know.

Please, copy away! I have very champagne tastes and can't even afford beer, but what I do have is a good imagination and good problem solving skills. If I can figure out a way to get it (honestly, of course, lol), I will. I think sharing in forums and pintrest and blogs has been an amazing $$ saver for me and we should all help each other out.

I'm not knocking the designer stuff. If I were in a better financial position, I wouldn't have a problem booking a week at a cute b&b and leaving orders the house be done by the time I got back. As it is, I'm crawling around on hands and knees with a paint brush figuring out how to mimic what I can't afford. I'm not complaining, it's been an amazing creative and learning adventure!

It's beautiful!! I've never done much work w/wood, but I don't see any staples in your pictures. How did you hide them?

Looks great!

I didn't try to hide them, they just seem to have blended away among all the various layers of stain colors.

Thank you all, I appreciate the feedback! I was pretty nervous going so unconventional but I'm happy I chanced it.

Now if I could just find a rustic looking faucet that wasn't so expensive. :( There are some ORB ones that are reasonable but they don't really go with the rustic iron (kind of distressed/rusted wrought iron, dull and "forged" looking) hardware I like. I may have to change to plain wooden knobs instead of the barn hardware I chose in order to find an affordable faucet that works with the look. Or maybe I'll just use the icky one that's there for awhile until I can splurge on one that matches better.

Looks awesome! I can't wait to see your finished room.

Did you pick your dark olive paint yet?

Long story short(ened), I bought this house after I was in escrow with my previous house (sold only due to divorce). Anyway, the other house sale went sour at the very last second and therefore all my funding vanished. I was already in escrow with this one and it was such an amazing value I didn't want to lose it. Plus, I was pretty sure I'd be sued for breach of contract if I backed out. It took every cent from every source to close and I won't have any reno money until the other house really does sell.

I'm only doing
a) the floors & cabinets because doing them while living in the house with 3 kids is all but impossible (all done DIY on the cheap with the generous aid of my sister)

and

b) anything which I already have the needed supplies for on hand. as it happens, I have 2 plus gallons of a pretty, dark/deep olive leftover from painting my basement room at my apartment. It just so happens to look quite lovely with my sofa set so I'm using it in the family room.

Awesome - you are very crafty, creative and resourceful! Good for you! Great job - love the floors, just not sure I would use the black nails. I think it looks great the way it is.