Folks it's me again I posted back about a year and a half ago on a DIY weaved floor, seen here post42907.html#p42907

Anyway I've had furniture all this time over the weave and new floor. I also have not yet had the floor refinished just yet as I plan to do it after I continue this floor into my kitchen- all part of my kitchen remodel Thus, I just put some poly over the floor, not yet sanded.

I went to put some baseboard trim in place and noticed a few things with it not fitting, there was a bit of rocking on the baseboard- first I have a bit of crowding going on with the weave Not only are the planks a little crooked, I also noticed the planks are bending a little.

it appears my existing boards are *slightly* thinner than 2 1/4". Thus, the new boards are a little wider and being squeezed into place. The difference is very small- I'm guessing a few thousandths of an inch. It's not noticeable at the beginning of the pattern, but after 9 feet and 45 planks the differences add up to about 1-8"-1/16".

Thus- I have a little bit of a gap between the boards and there's a slight high spot around the area where the boards are bunching up with the weave. This is evident when I take a straight edge it rocks.

You can see how there's about a 1/16" bend at this plank verses the straight edge. You can also see the plank at the very top has a noticeable gap to it since this one has nothing to press against to "straighten" it out.



Here's pic of the weave while I installed it.



Pic of weave from 5 minutes ago
(yes I know the floor doesn't match perfectly, the photography makes it look worse. Hopefully it will be less noticeable when refinished. nearly impossible to match 55 year old wood ) You can see how the boards are being forced into place. The dark lines you see at the butt joints are shadows since the new boards are still "taller". It is winter time now so the crowding would be worse in the summer when there's more humidity.



Soooooooo, the million dollar question now- is, should I redo this before I lay another 12 feet of board into the kitchen? It's not that bad but I'd rather cover my losses now then keep going.

I'm thinking if I disassemble the floor, I can run each board though a jointer to shave off a small amount of material and be more careful this time putting it back together watching out for any crowding. It's time consuming but since my pattern is already cut it shouldn't take _too_ long lol

Or, should I leave it as is, fill the gaps with filler and just get it refinished and hopefully everything will level out?

Any thoughts?

Hi
if you see 1/6'' after 45 planks later i would leave as-is.
sand just the ends of the new planks with an edger to match the height of your old floor,so the bigger belt sander doesn't kick and make tougher to sand.

once everything will be sanded you will be the only one knowing there is something on the floor...

don't forget to fill in the cracks:)

Hmm ok sounds good. I'm likely not going to redo the entire floor- too much work! Though I may redo part of it where the buckling starts getting noticeable.

However I think I made another mistake, I used Select white oak with 3-10' long boards to match that of my existing floor, but they're flat sawn- you can see the pronounced difference in grain in the picture. The rest of my floors look rift and quartered. Might even be rift only.

The local flooring distributor had the flat sawn in stock and it was about 1/2 the cost of the rift & quartered (and even less than rift only) wood, which also would have to be special ordered in + shipping. But thinking back, perhaps I should have sprung for the R&Q...

Decisions, decisions....

if you can change a few planks,try putting darker ones because in fact your old floor is a natural grade, you can see that there are a few dark marks in the grain.
the cut of the wood is not to bad,the really flat cut planks can be changed,and in fact would be better because that plank will go down fast in the sanding process making it lower than the others around it.

Sounds good. I actually found another flooring distributor who has the R&Q Select white oak readily in stock This will make things *much* easier and cheaper than having to special order stuff in.

If there's any saving grace the area I already laid down was only about 80 square feet and taking up the boards is easier then I had imagined. Thus, I'll likely redo the entire thing, now that I've learned from my mistakes.

I figure this floor will be here for the next 50+ years so might as well cut my losses and do it right