kitchen sub floors construnction ???

[Narny]

Originally Posted by shepherdmom

Yes they are stained, cherrywood I think it was called. They are just cold to stand on and the rooms that have carpeting are so much warmer than the ones that don't. Also getting scratched up from dog toes and other things. I've never had wood floors before and I'm finding them kind of a pain. Carpet is easy. Vaccum every few days and use carpet cleaner every 6 months or so. The wood floors need to be vaccumed constantly or we get huge fur bunnies... and when you move furniture to vaccum and mop under it scratches floor. Even vaccum scratches floor if not careful.

Get laminate! I can not for the life of me figure out WHY someone now a days would want real hard wood instead of laminate flooring.

Hard wood floors need MANY special treatments. You have to be careful with all the scratches and they are GLUED in place. With laminate flooring they just float it above your sub floor. If you have to fix something you dont have to break all the boards up, you just remove them to fix and then replace. Laminate can be graded to keep scratches at bay. Oh and the cost!! Lets not forget that it costs almost 10 times more than laminate! I just dont get it.

I just can not see the appeal to hard wood. I have small children and am getting a puppy. Active life and hard wood just dont mix imo.

[RocketDog]

Someone should tell the floors back east, that are several hundred years old, (I lived in a house that dated from 1792 and those floors are still there) that active life and hard wood just don't mix.

[Narny]

See, and thats the thing I dont understand. I have seen those floors and wonder how the heck they survived all those years.

[shepherdmom]

Mine are 100 years old except for the spots we replaced. They take a beating but can be sanded down and refinished. The laminate do not take that kind of beating. Here is what the floor looked like when we uncovered it.

Before


and after

[RocketDog]

Also, they often used Tung Oil, which is what I used on mine. It's a waterproof oil that becomes part of the wood over time. And you don't have to do anything in terms of refinishing, you can just reapply right over the top.

[shepherdmom]

Originally Posted by RocketDog

Also, they often used Tung Oil, which is what I used on mine. It's a waterproof oil that becomes part of the wood over time. And you don't have to do anything in terms of refinishing, you can just reapply right over the top.

Oooh never heard of this stuff... Can you apply over stain and gloss?

[RocketDog]

You can apply it over stain but not over other finishes--it actually soaks into the wood so you would have adhesion problems if there's another finish already present. It's also difficult to get if your state has VOC laws-- there are several Tung oil mixes on the market though, Waterlox being very well-known one. I prefer the 100% Tung oil though. It was smelly for sure, but very easy to apply once you got the hang of it, and it is waterproof enough that the Chinese used it 1000 years ago to waterproof their ships.

I should clarify "easy": I applied four coats of tung oil to my floors. I mopped it on with a lambswool applicator, let dry between each coat for a couple of days and fine sanded each coat and then wiped off the grit before I reapplied the next coat-- but they're spectacular.

[RocketDog]

This is actually a pretty decent description: http://http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik..._oil#section_2

[holland]

I think hardwood is beautiful-

[shepherdmom]

Originally Posted by RocketDog

You can apply it over stain but not over other finishes--it actually soaks into the wood so you would have adhesion problems if there's another finish already present. It's also difficult to get if your state has VOC laws-- there are several Tung oil mixes on the market though, Waterlox being very well-known one. I prefer the 100% Tung oil though. It was smelly for sure, but very easy to apply once you got the hang of it, and it is waterproof enough that the Chinese used it 1000 years ago to waterproof their ships.

I should clarify "easy": I applied four coats of tung oil to my floors. I mopped it on with a lambswool applicator, let dry between each coat for a couple of days and fine sanded each coat and then wiped off the grit before I reapplied the next coat-- but they're spectacular.

oh darn... Not going to work for me then. We used a different finish.