Pine Floor Restoration

These floors are in the loft of an 1886 coach house. They are 5” wide old growth pine. I removed one layer of carpet, carpet pad, a layer of 1/4” plywood, and all the staples and nails before I started to sand the top layer of grime away to reveal the beautiful ancient pine grain. I used 60 grit granat paper with my Festool Rotex RO 150 FEQ with the CT36 HEPA Dust Extractor. I worked up to 100 grit granat paper. The boards are absorbent and thirsty for oil, so I found that 100 grit wasn’t too fine of a surface finish, however many times you don’t want to go over 80 grit when using oil finishes.

I used Advanced Repair Technology’s Prime-a-trate bonding agent and 401 Flex-tec elastomeric repair compound to fill the gaps between the pine boards. The Flex-tec bonds with the wood and will not shrink or crack. This product is produced in the USA, contains zero VOC’s. You should still ventilate your work area, wear a respirator and protect your skin. There isn’t a safer or higher performing epoxy for wood. You can tint the epoxy by mixing in mineral pigments, which is what I did for this project.

This is the tinted Flex-tec before the final sand.

The tray of the various Osmo oil stain colours I used for this room.

The trap door hasn’t been sanded yet. The round hole in the floor is from an old vent or plumbing and will get a patch at some point. I have not painted the walls yet, they will be sanded and enlivened by a nice alabaster mineral paint in the future.