Install a Beautiful, Affordable Wood Floor

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The floodlight that was so helpful while sanding is now even more important for applying an even finish. When applying stain or sealer, the floodlight highlights areas you’ve missed and makes deficiencies easy to see. If you are brushing on a liquid stain, immediately wipe it evenly over the wood, and then remove the excess stain that hasn’t soaked in. When you apply a sealer, use a 4-inch-wide brush, moving it back and forth with the wood grain. Some professionals apply the sealer with a paint roller, but I’ve never found they work well. A brush is a much easier option, and it’s pretty fast, too.

To bring out the full beauty of the wood, you must sand lightly between coats of polyurethane or varnish. This operation removes tiny wood fibers that popped up from the surface of the floor as they absorbed finishing liquid and then hardened. Let the first coat dry completely, then smooth it with a palm sander fitted with 220 grit sandpaper. Repeat the light sanding after the second and third coats have dried. Leave the fourth coat unsanded, but let it dry completely before allowing foot traffic.

Few other flooring choices can beat pine in terms of satisfaction, beauty and cost. It’s a DIY option that’s as down to earth as any gorgeous floor can get.

Installing Wood on Concrete

Concrete basement floors are too damp for most kinds of wood flooring, but not so for concrete slab floors poured at ground level — provided you install the wood flooring on an appropriate base.

For your base, begin by fastening sheets of three-fourths inch plywood on top of your concrete using a type of screw made for this purpose (usually manufactured by Tapcon). If you live in a hot, humid climate, you need to insulate your floor to protect against condensation. To do this, add a 1 inch layer of extruded polystyrene foam underneath the plywood. This rigid sheet material is dense enough to support plywood and a finished floor without the need for any other support. Once the plywood is down, install your softwood flooring on top.

Expanding and Shrinking Boards

Wood expands as it absorbs moisture and shrinks as it dries, which can lead to buckled floorboards or gaps between boards. To avoid these problems, the moisture content of any wood flooring you install must match the average humidity level of your home.

Most softwoods used for flooring have been dried in a kiln, a sealed chamber that removes moisture faster than if the wood were drying in the open air (called “air-dried” lumber). You certainly can use air-dried wood for flooring, but just because wood is kiln-dried or has been stacked in a barn for the last decade don’t assume that its moisture content matches the average humidity level of your home. In fact, it’s probably quite different.

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