Kitchen Floor Decision

[Willa]

So far, so good with the tile removal. What you've exposed looks very salvageable.

[Kashka-Kat]

Nail holes shouldn't be that big a deal - unless they were realy big monster sized nails. Even so - just fill them before you sand - w / wood fill thats tinted to your wood color .

[Kashka-Kat]

Nail holes shouldn't be that big a deal - unless they were realy big monster sized nails. Even so - just fill them before you sand - w / wood fill thats tinted to your wood color .

[1918ColonialRevival]

You've got a couple of different directions you could head with this. That looks like it's standard grade pine, or "paint grade" as some might say. Finished wood is doable, but you'd need to use a nail punch to countersink those nail heads and then hit them with some filler before sanding and finishing. The main problem I see with this is it will be very hard to completely hide the filled areas. The way these boards were nailed, you can tell they never intended for them to be finished.

Or, you could install a nice tile or linoleum (notice I didn't say vinyl ) and that would look good as well. A third option would be a painted floor, but you'd still need to sink the nail heads and fill over them. They would be a little less obvious this way.

Whatever you decide, you've got some options.

[phil]

I did my kitchen. it had several layers of flooring and I did have that black tar stuff and it was really hard to get it off my flooring but I did.
one section had been replaced by the door about 3" wide and 8' long that all ended at the same place so there was this crack where they all ended , and that flooring was 2 inch not 3/1/4 like the rest of the floor.

I also found some plywood sections where there had at one time been stairs down. I replaced both sections which also required removing some extra in order to stagger the joints.

With all the flooring replaced the floor also was covered in black marks from the iron/fir reaction with the tannins. I treated the whole floor with wood bleach. it worked !

I mixed putty carefully to exactly match and used several close colors to blend my patches and to fill any gaps that were too thin to shim and too thick to leave alone.

after bleaching it was lighter than floors in the rest of my house so I did three applications of dainish oil and a bit of stain, in very weak layers I adjusted the color. when the color was good I locked it in with poly.
I had several pipe holes. I can help you replace those boards mid floor if you need an explanation on doing that. dont' plug the holes it's harder and usually looks obvious.
all in all it's a ton of work. I was determined to make it come out right and it did , even the flooring I added cant' be noticed to not be original. I did a full sanding drum sander , edger, pad sander and then replaced the baseboards later.
you might be able to cut the plywood from under the cabinets with a multitool.
here is an example
https://www.mississaugahardware.com/pro ... AhWC8P8HAQ

all in all I like it but my floor is soft so you do get some dents where you drop tin cans etc. If you don't' want to go to a lot of work then cork would be a great alternative.
you can't really tell how much original flooring you have left. I'd keep pulling until you find out. Then look at old house parts places and see if you can get a match on the flooring , if it's 3 1/4 or 2" it shouldn't be hard to find more. but sand it all together. I would not go for a painted floor myself but your choice of course.

a lot of houses did have battleship linoleum with a jute backing in the kitchen so the wood floor might not be original and chances are good that it hasn't' been sanded but it is a wet area and the wood will have suffered more than other rooms. it gets between or under the flooring and stays wet sometimes. rusty nails create the black spots. ( with fir and oak at least) its a chemical reaction dont' mistake it for rot if you see it a bit blackened near the nails.

when I did my kitchen I removed all cabinetry except the countertop and I just braced that in place so the sink was still functional but not near the floor. then I moved the sink and took that counter away later.

As much as I hate laminate it is fast and if you don't' want a huge reno on your hands it is an option and you can always go further later down the road and there are some suitable options albeit they aren't quite real wood you could go with an antique board pattern and use a floating floor so nothing is nailed. or a cork pattern.

nail holes are the least of your battles, be prepared to spend some time with putty and color matching it and you'll hide them quite well. If you see the odd nail hole that has appropriately matched filler it wont' be the end of the world. if your filler doesn't' match well or if you get it all over too much surface it will look like a mess.

If you putty nail holes or cracks use masking tape to isolate any area not in need of putty. You can punch a little hole in a piece of tape and just move it hole to hole and fill each and pull the tape while the filler is wet or you can put tape either side of any cracks to avoid the issue of too much putty. wax crayons will even work for little nails or staple holes. the nails all need to be below the surface before you sand. use a nail set.

all in all the way I went with it was lots of work but now the flooring is a match to the rest of the house.

let me put it a simpler way. would working on your kitchen floor for about 4 to 6 months of your spare time , say one day on the weekend and two evenings a week be out of the question? If you want it to be over in a couple weekends do laminate or cork. If you want it to be restored it's more work but it is quite satisfying to "win" you could probably convert he above to about 3 weeks if you have time off but what I'm saying it this isn't' a weekend project it is several weekends , if you restore the floor and sand. hey did you want insulation in those walls behind the counter. I did I was really glad I did but it adds more work.

the more area you have to replace the longer it is but that isn't as bad as you might first assume if you can get more flooring that's similar.

as far as originality is concerned probably a good lino might be an option and you can probably still get some colors of battleship lino with a jute backing and that stuff lasts a lifetime. My thoughts are nice wood floors are hard to find especially ones that are finished with the care and attention to detail that you'd actually be proud of. In this day and age show it off !

There is just no way I'd go to all the work and then paint it. It's your floor and your time so do what you like best. If you pull the plywood , worst case scenario you decide to put it back. If you wanted you can pull the cabinets or cut the plywood around them. If you want to finish the floor you'll be happiest if you can move as much as possible out of there , a temporary kitchen could be an option.

what I did to keep it livable is used interlocking rubber mats so I could just uncover the area I was currently working on. that helped a bit. having the fridge in the living room was a PITA

Make sure your spouse is on board with the project. Its worth taking the time to decide the path best for you. disagreement over large projects like this can be difficult. If you pull the cabinets you might want to rewire the kitchen while they are out. and then do you want to put them back or do you want even nicer ones and where does all the reno stop? It depends what you shoot for.

if you poly add a couple of weeks to let it harden. Ive met people who did all the work to refinish and than had tracks where the fridge got slid back. You can use something to protect the floor if you must work in there before it's cured. it will dry enough to walk on overnight. fullly cured takes longer. Just using oil is another option.
you can choose the sheen you want. Poly only looks like plastic when people let it pool and don't' know how to apply it properly.. It wont' prevent the wood from denting. It will wear much longer than other finishes but oiling them once a year isn't' too bad either. With the poly it's an all day affair to get three coats down while it is still uncured so they cross link properly. You can recoat later if you scuff sand. I wouldn't recommend water based on what I have heard but it's getting more common and if you hire out they may want to convince you its great stuff. personally I'd pick poly or an oil finish if you refinish and you can do both, oil then poly. that's the way I do it myself. the oil hardens the wood and the poly is a shell over that. It wears longer if you do both. It still wont' stop the dent from the soup can rolling off the counter. Oak or maple or another hardwood might fare better for denting. if you didnt' care about the kitchen matching you could lay a new floor using reclaimed flooring. watch ads for anyone wrecking a house. Its not that hard to take out and would be cheaper.

right now I'd try to uncover some edges to see how much of that looks like flooring or plywood , it might help you make an assumption whats there.

often old homes had a heater in the basement and big vents, probably one in the kitchen and in the hall. they weren't forced air so the grates in the floor were big. along came forced air and then instead of all the heat just rising through the middle of the house there were now air returns and fans so they covered those big floor grates as they were no longer needed. the patch you found might only be a previous floor grate but if that were the case the subfloor would at least have a hole in it where the grate was.
Phil

[phil]

i had to zoom in on the black photo to see the row of nails. those dont' look like finishing nails. You could use one of these :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... 1938967031

that tool will leave dibits near the nail holes.. or you can just set them with a punch of appropriate size for the head and a big hammer and fill them. I wouldn't let that stop you.

I also see an issue by the stove. you can see at least two boards were joined in the same place. I can't see the area clearly but this might have been the location of the vent. In order to not have those ugly cracks lining up you can remove some of the adjacent boards to shift the alignment of the joints. Its normal to have some joints but two or more in a row look messy.

If that black stuff comes up easily you are lucky there.

[phil]

on price, I dont' think you are going to see a huge difference. If you refinish you have three rentals and the sandpaper and the poly or oil or whatever finish some other old flooring to make up what's missing. so say 1K for supplies and I think youll find it's like 3 bucks a square foot or about 300 sq ft so about 1K either way depending on the products you choose.. i'd do it the way you want.. you can save by using a ROS and have a wavy floor or use cheaper laminates and things , you can cut corners but I'd say it's going to be roughly 1K no matter how you go. the refinishing is just a lot of labor love

[House_BuhBooLis]

i had to zoom in on the black photo to see the row of nails. those dont' look like finishing nails. You could use one of these :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... 1938967031

that tool will leave dibits near the nail holes.. or you can just set them with a punch of appropriate size for the head and a big hammer and fill them. I wouldn't let that stop you.

I also see an issue by the stove. you can see at least two boards were joined in the same place. I can't see the area clearly but this might have been the location of the vent. In order to not have those ugly cracks lining up you can remove some of the adjacent boards to shift the alignment of the joints. Its normal to have some joints but two or more in a row look messy.

If that black stuff comes up easily you are lucky there.

My goodness, Phil, thanks so much for taking the time to write so much! I really appreciate it and I think a lot of your advice will come in handy. A few things to mention. First, I think I have pretty much accepted that the kitchen floors will never look like the rest of the floors in the house (and looks like they were never suppose to, as they were always covered) so getting them to super match was never a goal. Second, the floors in the dining and living room are not in great condition, and have definitely been lived in (see my previous post of the "mystery floor marks"), so getting pristine floors really wasn't ever necessary either...a distressed look is fine.

Regarding the "vent patch" you mention, haven't found that yet (what you see in front of the stove is still a piece of plywood), but I know what you're talking about and we already have one, in the entry...and yeah it looks bad...so perhaps there won't be one in the kitchen....

And yes, we know this is going to take many weekends, but we'll probably end up doing whatever takes the fewest...which painting seemed like the way to go, but I think we'll finish getting the floor up, and go from there. However, I think we are pretty focused on just doing the floor. Thanks for all the tool suggestions, I think we'll definitely need something to get the plywood out from under the cabinets.

[phil]

some of those cabinets might not be too hard to move. I'd just have a look before you go cutting anything. painting the floor , hmmm ,, Maybe you could just lay 1/4" plywood or laminate and paint that and then if you ever wanted to redo the floors you wouldn't have paint to contend with? If you paint them I would at very least do a couple of coats of shellac first. that will help with the issue of paint in every crack and you can heat gun it off easier if you want to sand them at a later point. I'm not partial to painted floors but it's more important that you do what you like. If you want cheap and fast then maybe another option is to just use random orbital sander with about 150 grit to clean up the floor and then put a coat of oil on that. You wont'; take much wood off with 150 grit but maybe it would just break through the dirt and existing finish and if all you do is wipe some Tung oil or danish oil or linseed oil and turps on it it will look pretty nice without breaking the bank.. You can always do a full sand later if you dont' remove too much. commercial sanders take lots off quickly and do a better job of flattening the floor. As normal you will notice some slight differences in height so when you start sanding you'll remove the darkened skin of old wood faster on the high spots and to get the lower ones the same darkness requires a deeper cut. you can cut deeper with a ROS but it will roll with the floor instead of flattening it so I'd just use that for a little touch up but I wouldn't use the coarse paper like 36 or 60 that you might run on the drum sander.

[Powermuffin]

We have the original wood floors all throughout the old part of the house. In the kitchen new, cheap oak floors were installed over layers. When we got down to the original wood, they were chopped up from all the different configurations of the kitchen. There was a trap door, holes for pipes, reinforced places for stoves... In the end, we put down a sub floor and Marmoleum.