The top 4 pictures in this series are of an old pine floor that we re-finished and brought back to life. Usually if the floor hasn’t been re-sanded several times, and unless it has just been destroyed, we can do a complete refinish and bring a floor back to “almost new” condition. We normally don’t fill the cracks on floors like these, because usually old pine floors have quite a bit of “movement” which is just a characteristic of old floors. Filling the cracks would be counter productive as in a year or two, the filler would work out of the cracks as the boards move, causing an undesirable look. Normally it is just best to leave the cracks the way they are, as these are a common feature of old pine floors, as you can see by these pictures.
This is a 50 year old Oak floor, with before and after Photos. The finish was nearly completely worn off of this old floor, but the floor was in perfect shape under dirt and grime which had worked into the very top layer of wood. This was a dramatic difference.
The pictures below are of an approximately 25 year old, 3 inch #1 Red Oak Floor that had seen better days. After Refinishing and staining with “Nutmeg” color stain, the floor looks brand new.
There are about as many kinds of distressed floors as there are individual tastes. We have clients ask about distressed floors all the time, nearly weekly. My most used comment about distressed floors is, “One person’s distressing is another person’s destruction”. A lot of people, in past years myself included, would just cringe at the thought of a distressed or beat up floor. But distressed floors have become very popular in the past few years, and we’ve done our share of them.
They come in every form. From what I would call a “light distressing” which would include some “worm hole” looking areas, a few deep natural looking scratches, and various dents and dings. To a wholesale hand scraping, which we have done quite a bit of, and that has it’s own section on the website. There are saw mark distresses, and what we call “ship’s deck” which is done with a chisel or a gouge, and takes out a pretty good chunk of wood here and there.
I would also include the “reclaimed” wood in this category. We have access to suppliers that have wood that has been reclaimed out of old barns or factories that have a special patina that you just can’t get with what most would call “new wood”. This type of material can get very expensive, mainly just because of supply and demand….or mainly just supply, because there is a very limited quantity of this material around. These types of floors really give the client a floor that is truly unique however.