Part 3 of reno-storing the front hallway of my 1927 Arts&Craft bungalow is about refinishing the floor. Part 1 covered the walls and ceiling, and part 2 was planning what to do with the floor.
The relatively large entry hall, for a 1400 sq ft house, is 23 ft long and mostly 8 ft wide except where it’s 3ft wide. I’ve divided it into three areas: immediately inside the front door is the foyer (6 x 8 ft plus closet), then a sitting area (8 x 7 ft.) and at the far end, a hall to the dining-room and kitchen (9 x 3′). The floor in the foyer and hall will be tiled, and original hardwood will be refinished the sitting area.
The tiled areas were relatively easy to finish. Found some 12×12″ tiles that look like old asbestos tile, but aren’t (checked with manufacturer, and although called vinyl composite tiles, they are 85% limestone) – a good retro-mimic. These require gluing onto the existing underlay, then a polish.
The glue and trowel for tile installation I purchased on the advice of an associate at a certain big box DIY store. Fortunately I read the glue specs on the manufacturers website and found that while I have the right bucket of adhesive, the trowel was wrong. Recommended were trowel grooves of 1/16″ to 1/32″ V-shaped while the one I got was 1/4″ to 3/16″ 1. So I procured another one which was all 1/16″. I figured the point is to apply a very thin layer of glue and the original trowel would have left a big gooey mess beneath my tiles, perhaps squishing out the sides.
Tiles laid. Things I learned:
- Marking the subfloor for the position of the tiles should be glaring to see through the glue. While the glue dries sort of transparent, I’d recommend heavy black lines. My substrate had a bunch of grey lines from a previous tile job so I used purple to be different, but it was hard to find under the glue.
- The glue took a long time to set up. Officially, it’s good to go when sticky but stays on the floor when touched. The first section I did took 1.5 hours and the next 2.5 hours to get to this state. I’d say start a little earlier, when the glue is slightly gloopy, so the tiles slide a bit (and by a bit, I mean 0.5 millimetres) after they’re placed down.
- i.e. Instant stick. Once the tile is down on the surface, it is stuck and there is no lifting it back up, like is possible with ceramic tile. Tried to pull up a vinyl tile with a pry bar and it broke.
- The black tiles make better invisible seams than the white ones. Looking to fill cracks between the white tiles, as fractions of millimetres are visible. A bit of a read online convinces me that regular grout isn’t the answer, as it isn’t as flexible as the tiles and will crack. There’s vinyl tile grout, but it doesn’t seem to be available in my country. I get the bright idea to use construction adhesive, because it dries white, remains flexible and I have it in the basement. This last one is a terrible criteria, but I got going with it and it filled the gaps to give an overall better appearance to the floor. Then it dried, leaving a smear along the seams. Fortunately, mineral spirits are acceptable to use on the installed tiles and removed the surface glue.
- The downside of using these tiles, manufactured for industrial use, is that they need polishing. The hard part was finding the right products, but they did make the floor all shiny and finished-looking once found.
The hardwood was more involved. Prior to staining and poly, the plan (pending more surprises) to deal with the issues was:
Paint spills. Did a trial with EZStrip and liked the results. Don’t want to sand as I find sanding blobs of paint from a wood surface leaves a dent in the wood (it’s impossible to just sand the blob, so the wood around it gets too much sanding). To make the stripper efficient, I scraped to remove the bulk of paint first.
Minor damage – scratches and gouges. I planned to use epoxy for gaps and significant gouges, although concerned about how well the filler will take the stain and getting it off the wood around the hole, so…Nail holes from the underlay install. Except for those that fall into the gouges category, I’ll fill these after staining if they are too obvious, with colour-matched wood filler putty.
Once I got going, there was no hole too small for me to fill with the wood filler3. So no need to repair after staining. My test of how well the filler takes the stain was : ok. Not the same as the wood, but at least not glaringly different. After nail holes, gaps, gouges and a circular saw mark were filled, I sanded. 80 Gar to remove the excess filler. Then overall a light hand sanding with 80, followed by 120, and 150 Gar.
A strip that goes the wrong way at the door to the bathroom. I’m thinking an extra wide threshold will take care of this (6″). While looking for a wooden threshold this big, the idea of using left over tile came to me, and worked well. (Seen in photo at end of post.)
A gap between the wall and floor too wide to cover with baseboard. I hoped to find oak, but use pine if necessary. This area would only be noticeable if there was nothing there, so pine with the same stain will be fine. Of course, the size is awkward, 3/8″ high with one area 3.5′ long, goes from 3/8″ wide to 3/4″ wide. The other is 8′ long, and width of 1 to 1 1/4″. This is the tongue side of the flooring, so I’m going to have to cut 8′ of tongue off to get a flush fit. Good thing I have a multitool. After the paint was stripped, these edge gaps were filled with 3/8″ square strips of poplar from the hobby section of the lumber aisle. No revelations, except that the newspaper I pulled up from between the subfloor and hardwood advertsed coats on sale for $8.99 on July 10, 1958.
Surface ready for stain. What colour stain for the hardwood? It looks so great and retro when wetted, turning a dark honey oak, which reflects the traditional look the floor would have had a century ago. And this colour matches the living/dining room area, which it isn’t directly adjacent to, but not far away. On the other hand, there are black (ebony) stained wood floors in other areas of the house. I started this because it’s a good mimic of old, worn wood floors, and a good way to cover the ravages of time2 while still maintaining a wood grain.
Tested the two options on a bit of floor that will be covered with tiles. My immediate reaction is to go traditional, with the golden oak stain tested. The ebony just didn’t do the wood justice. I’ve liked how it looked on big grains – pine and the oak of stair treads – but it didn’t sing to me as the golden oak did. Incidentally, I also tried just poly, which ended up the same hue but not as rich as the stain.
Still I wavered. The benefits of the ebony stain – better to hide the many imperfections and the match with other floors in the house – were appealing. Against that, I compare the match to the living-room, original stain, and functionality of separating the area from the two ‘hall’ areas, where the floors are 3/16″ higher. What won me over was the honey oak colour is closest to original.
Delightfully, the filler took the stain better than the test. The poly darken the wood more than I was expecting (should know to expect the unexpected with old wood) but overall, it looks good. Interesting variants of grain, including quarter sawn. A bit scratched up but aren’t we all after 100 years of wear?
Happy with the floor finish, onward to Part 4, the trim.
1 I know trowels come in three dimensions and different grove shapes. Yes, it’s all important but not my point.
2 By which I mean irregularities in the appearance of the wood due to previous finishes, differential weathering (some under carpet, some not), stains, traffic, neglect and whatever.
3 I used Lepages’ plastic wood. It’s a variant on epoxy, with head-spinning organic solvent. Amateur tip: it hardens very fast, like 5 to 10 minutes. Take a small amount out of the can, put the lid back on the can and work with what’s out. Then go back to the can for more. It fills holes in wood very well. It doesn’t want to stay in countersunk nail/screw holes. And it’s only mediocre at filling cracks. Push it in firmly, when as wet as possible. With an old floor, it wants to stick in the grain (despite not staying in cracks well). This is annoying to sand out, so scrape as much as possible out before it dries. Otherwise, I don’t think there is a alternative, other than other brands that are the same epoxy-based wood fibre pastes.