I removed the 5/4" T&G Heart Pine flooring from my 1800's home and put down 3/4" ply for a sturdier house/floor. The boards are 8 - 14" and up to 18' long. They were nailed down with cut nails. I cut all those with a sawzall to remove from the joists. Now I'm putting them back, but it seems that most of the boards vary in width from end to end (3/4" in some cases). I might have a 14" width on one end, but 13 3/4 inch on the other end. Should I forego the T&G, put it on my table saw and rip it to a uniform length.... then glue, stape and/or ring shank face nail it? It is an old floor that we plan to refinish, but it's still going to look old, so I'm not sure if it matters that much about the T&G. Is there a problem butting them in most cases and using the T&G only when they fit?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

If you can afford it, your old plank floors would be perfect for re-milling. If it were me, I'd contact a couple of local mills to see what the cost would be to mill the planks to uniform widths. They need not be all the same width but do need to be uniform. In otherwords, all 14" width planks should all be 14", all 10" planks all 10" and so on. Then you can have tongues and grooves milled to the sides. Consider having them run through a thickness planer as well, to bring them all into the same thickness. Then when re-installing, use Carlisle's method of blind nailing through the tongue and gluing 8" OC with LP400. After finishing, if you want to install decorative cut nails, you still can. If you use the nails before sanding and finishing, they need to be set below the surface of the flooring.

I would remill if I was living there. Unfortunately after two babies during the renovation, we decided to move, finish the house and sell it. I don't think I'd be able to recover any of the remilling costs.