Frugal Farmhouse Wood Floors & Goodbye Carpet !

An old 100 plus year old farmhouse, stained off-white carpet, one daughter who sometimes suffers from allergies (and carpet doesn't seem to help), and a five hundred dollar budget.  What to do?  Step 1:  Carpet had to come up.

I mentioned in an earlier post about sharing some of the frugal ideas we've been carrying out while absent from posting on the blog for so long, and this project is one of our favorites!   Step 2:  Boards from a sheet of plywood, yes PLYWOOD had to be cut 8" wide to achieve the farmhouse look we wanted and each sheet proved six 8" boards.

We really wanted something which would look like wide plank farmhouse floors and with the appearance of being original to the old house.  But how might that be done on a $500.00 dollar budget?  And in the living room and dining room?  Plywood!  Bethany found the idea on Pinterest and we're thrilled with the results!!  Step 3:  Take the wood planks outside and stain each one

Jordan laid out the room, he, Josh and Jacob cut the sheets of plywood, Josh, Jacob, Johnathon and Jeremiah did most of the nailing down, Judson was everyone's bestest helper, and my sweet daughters did the staining and coats of polyurethane!  It was truly a project which involved the whole family.:)     Step 4:  Apply liquid glue to the underside of the planks.

Step 5:  My sons used three lengths of planks in order to achieve the appearance of random sized boards.  But they did follow a staggered pattern for each row. 

Looking great!  Oh, we stained the boards outside cause we didn't want all the smell and trouble of doing that inside the house.

Step 6:  In order to get the farmhouse look we wanted, the fellas used a framing square to achieve an equal amount of space between each plank and row.  I definitely wanted the bit of gap between each board.

Step 7:  In addition to the liquid glue having been applied to the underside of each board, they are also secured by using small nails in the nail gun.  You really can't see the nails, but we did purchase some old-fashioned looking square head nails.  Those we haven't put down yet and are really just for looks since the floor is already securely attached to the sub-floor.

Step 8:  Once the boards were stained, dried, and put down, and after the first coat of polyurethane applied, they had to be sanded just a little before the final two coats were applied.

And there you see a second coat of polyurethane being applied.  Love it!

The left side of the room is what the floors look like once you've sanded off a bit of the first coat of poly.

Don't you think they look nice and old??

Since the polyurethane had to have time to dry and we didn't want to be unable to use both rooms at one time, we chose to do one room at a time.  We allowed ourselves three days per room so as to give plenty of time for drying and getting furniture back in and between company coming.

We chose Early American as the color of stain because that's what appears to have been put on the old stair case and it does match beautifully!

And we're so happy to have all the carpet out of the house.  You wouldn't believe how much dirt was underneath.:(

And while we'd never dreamed of being able to use plywood instead of wood flooring, I can't tell you how pleased we are with the results.  We knew that if we had to pay the price of hardwood flooring it would be a very long time before we could get rid of the terribly stained and dirty carpet. And I'm so very appreciative of all the hard work my sons and daughters put into this project!!!

And if any of you are interested in such a project, we used the following:  plywood, nails and a nail gun, a table saw for cutting the plywood, liquid glue, stain, polyurethane, brushes, and a framing square.  And since I'm TERRIBLE at giving directions, you might want to head over to Pinterest to get better instructions!  Oh, they also have pictured a whitewashed looking plywood floor and it is so pretty.  And while my favorite color is white, we didn't think it would be to good for this old working farm and farmhouse.

Blessings,

Sherry