Saturday 28 September 2013

Finishing An Oak Floor

I remember pricing an oak floor, over a year ago now, and the customer said to me not to bother pricing in for staining and oiling the floor, they'd do that themselves. I cringed, as this can really make or break a floor. It's a shame to spent a lot of money on the oak and then skimp on the last bit.
 
 Last week I laid an oak floor, so all this week I've been juggling my week around sanding, staining and oiling it. Once the glue had gone off I filled all the deep knots, then spent a morning sanding all the filler off and any planer marks from the supplier (there were plenty). I sanded it to 120 grit as this is all that's needed for flooring.
I then spent quite a while cleaning it, making sure that there was no dust what so ever in the room before I set about staining it down to a medium oak colour.
The stain involved putting it on with a brush and then removing the excess with a rag (wax on wax off) and as the room was bigger than one pot would do, I emptied both pots into a container and mixed together so there would be no difference in colour tone.
This then took a day to dry before I set about oiling it. It took around two hours to apply the first coat of hard wax oil and this then took 24 hours to go off, I did set a large fan to blow over it to decrease the drying time.
I sanded lightly back between coats, hoovered it all again and applied the second (and last) coat of hard wax oil. I fitted the skirting in there yesterday and I'm really please with the finish. The floor has a warm even tone and is smooth to the touch. More pictures to follow!

8 comments:

  1. Don't think I have ever heard of an oiled floor on this side of the pond. For that mater gluing down wood flooring over a cement slab is also unheard of. Typically over cement slabs we do floating engineered prefinished wood.(we call them European). Basically 20 cm wide T&G plywood strips with a 3 mm veneer of preefinished hardwood. For the raw wood sort here it is usually 2&1/4 wide T&G red oak, nailed down over a plywood subfloor, sanded and polyurethaned with one coat of sealer and three of poly-U.

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    1. I'm not a massive fan of anything pre-finished as if anything happens at a later date you can sand it back off and start again! I have fitted a lot of that stuff though. Laying on a concrete slab is not an everyday thing but it just worked out best for what I was doing here. I've done it a number of times in the past and a lot of parque flooring is done like that (I've used the same adhesive on this one). The adhesive is super strong but allows the boards to expand and contract like they need to. Also the boards have groves in the back to allow for a bit of movement that way. Hopefully the concrete was completly dry when I put the floor down or thats when you have problems!
      As for the finish a poly finish scratches easy and is harder to touch up. With the oiled floor when it's looking a bit tired I can just "feed" it another coat. You'd be surprised how good a finish you can get from an oiled floor although if you want a high gloss finish then this isn't the one to go for. It's a matt finish thats kind of got a warm glow (without wanting to sound like an arse)

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  2. Look's good Kev as always :)

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  3. I showed this to Marcia Kev. She insisted on varnishing the floors of the cottage, you want to see how scuffed they look now. We are now half way through building the next two cottages. She has agreed that we should oil the floors. Thanks mate!

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    1. No worries! I recommend it. This is Treatex and I used the smae finish on a floor I did for my mother about 4 years ago and it still looks fine with no marks on it

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  4. Brilliant. Love the colour -it looks the same colour as my floors, lol
    I did a lot of research on flooring, as we have old floorboards down everywhere in our house . I decided a wax finish would be best as we have a very excitable lab who dases everywhere at top speed. Any claw marks would be able to be repaired easily. Also I am not steady on my feet and didn't want to slip. An oiled finish does give some traction and is certainly not as slippy as say a tiled floor or pre finished laminate (and the dog doesn't slip as easily either).
    Another bonus is that I find hoovering taxing and a quick dash round with a microfibre mop is much easier and gets rid of all dust and dog hair
    What stain did you use and what oil finished wax, looks a lovely colour and I still need to do the upstairs floors, the stuff I used was horribly expensive.
    P.s I am disabled and nearly sixty (and female) but I managed all this myself and my brother, who calls a spade a spade, thinks it looks great.

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