How To Remove Hardwood Floor To Reuse

Should y'all refinish 100 year sometime hardwood floors or supervene upon them with new?

This was the question that started the flooring chance in our newest remodel. All of the sources I said to refinish if the floors were in skilful shape. Bully – I can piece of work with that. The thing is, some of our floors were hiding under 3 layers of "new" flooring; linoleum, durarock, and tile. So refinishing was not going to exist an choice for us.

Every bit I began my search for the best deal, 1 dropped right in my lap. My married woman mentioned that good friends of ours were getting ready to put new wood floors in their habitation. They were putting in a completely dissimilar type and style of wood, but what they were going to tear out was exactly what I wanted. She asked them what they were going to exercise with the erstwhile floor and constitute out it was headed to the landfill. Maybe we could observe a way to help decrease their costs and ours at the aforementioned fourth dimension.

They were removing 2 ane/4-inch Red Oak hardwood. Now I had to calculate what I needed for my job and figure out how to remove it from his living room without destroying it in the process. Oh – and get information technology all completed in the next iii days earlier their contractor arrived to rip it out.This was going to be a wild Friday dark.

I drove over with a few hammers, pry bars, and a bunch of hope that I could make this work. Due to the way hardwood flooring is installed, removing it carefully requires yous to remove information technology the aforementioned way you laid it down. It takes a bit of work and willingness to sacrifice the first row or 2 to figure out which direction that was. Once you get started, information technology is a slow and methodical process. You piece of work your manner across the room – one board at a time – making sure not to harm the tongue. You desire to keep as much of the tongue intact as possible, so that a new nail can be driven through it into the side by side board and the subfloor during reinstallation.

I sorted the boards roughly by size and piled them in the back of my truck to take home. I estimated we would need effectually 300 Foursquare Anxiety of their flooring to yield enough good boards to complete our kitchen. Afterwards 8 hours of removal and a full truck bed, I was headed back home – nails and all.

Now I had to figure out how to deal with ALL of those nails. Afterward some trial and error, I decided that pulling out all the nails ran a loftier risk of ruining the practiced boards I had. Instead, I tried grinding the nails off on the back side of the woods. Information technology was much faster and more than constructive. I laid 12 boards side-past-side and clamped them together with my Rockwell Jawhorse. It provided the stability I needed to rapidly grind off all the nails and and so I could stack the boards and organize them for installation.

Now information technology was fourth dimension for a new toy and to figure out how to lay hardwood floors.

Since hardwood flooring installation was new to me, I wanted to brand sure I had the tools that would make the job as like shooting fish in a barrel as possible. I purchased a BOSTITCH 2-in-1 Flooring Nailer and it made all the divergence in our power to deeply and accurately fasten the boards.

I used a finish nailer on the get-go two-4 rows because you can't go the floor nailer in that shut to the wall. It is also very important that the first few rows are direct or you will run across issues in the doorways equally you lot install. Once we completed the first few rows, y'all could really see how it was going to accept shape. We had to be selective about where to install long boards and when to use shorter pieces in an effort to stagger the seams every bit much as possible. We also had to exist aware of how the smaller boards were cut, in society to ensure that boards without a tongue on the finish were installed along the edges of the room.

The beginning rows of our reclaimed floor going into the space that was previously a bedroom.

My supervisor taking time to closely evaluate my piece of work.

Information technology was easy to see that this was not the first time the kitchen had been remodeled. There were many holes in the subfloor. One department had then many substantial holes that nosotros needed to replace it completely. I enjoyed having Janell and the boys help me remove all of the black tile in training for the new flooring. We worked our way towards the existing kitchen; knowing that as before long equally one side was finished we would be shifting our appliances and sink across. Somehow nosotros managed to keep functioning in our makeshift kitchen equally nosotros worked.

Janell came downwards ane Saturday morning and plant a "little" hole in the kitchen. New basement access?

I was never so happy to consummate a job every bit I was with this i. Information technology is hard on the back and legs and took then much longer than I felt like it should have. We were pleased with the result and in photos it looked smashing. Upon closer inspection, you could encounter that the boards were not even because they were laid in a different blueprint than they had been worn down previously. We were hopeful that most of that could be resolved with sanding when they were refinished.

Here is a final look at the floors after I completed the install in our kitchen. We felt like they looked pretty darn proficient after all they had been through. There was also something to exist said for the fact that we were able to save this cute wood from heading to the landfill. Janell was excited to have some character and history in the floors because she felt that it was a better fit for our early 1900'due south farmhouse.

While I bask a challenge, I was happy to leave the sanding, staining, and poly to the pros. Nosotros wanted the kitchen to match the color and finish to the other areas of our home. And then we were happy to movement out for a few days while they came in and made things shine. It'south nice to be putting something in instead of tearing something out. Feels similar progress . . .

Source: https://westwindcreative.com/remove-reinstall-hardwood-floors/