This is what we bought:
piece of 1x4x8 for saw guide 4.86
Minwax Wood Conditioner (2 x $11.37) 22.74
respirator masks 10.97
knee pads 9.98
staining sponges (2 x $2.65) 5.30
rags 1.98
sandpaper 8.00
shoe molding (8 x $3.12) 24.96
transition trim (3 x $16.61) 49.83We went to a local lumber yard to find a better grade of plywood.
12 sheets of 3/4″ 4×8 AC plywood $550.00
TOTAL: $1096.23
STEP #2
I practiced staining on a piece of wood that the saw wanted to eat instead of cut. I used Minwax Red Mahogany.
The conditioner I used is Minwax Wood Conditioner. I decided I like the color with the conditioner applied first. It is more evenly stained and you can see more of the red which I like.
STEP #3
The LOML ripped (I learned a new term today) the plywood into 132-4×8 boards.
STEP #4
The LOML practiced working with this manly machine ~ the scary nail gun with compressor. He looks so sexy just standing next to it! This machine is very loud and scary to me. I asked him if I should leave the room to protect myself from flying nails (and they are really big nails). He laughed!
STEP #5
We wanted to waste as little wood as possible so we got to work using all the high school math that we said we would never use and came up with this pattern to lay the slats.
STEP #6
We started at one end of the room against the wall and finished each row progressing inward toward the fireplace. It took us two days, many cutting boo-boos, a few expletives flew, but in the end, it was worth every single second. And let me tell you, I have muscles in my legs I never knew I had and they are all screaming at me!!
The LOML and Son #3 laying out a plan
Son #4 having fun with the nail gun.
More than half way done!!
Here is the floor all laid down.
STEP #7
The staining was the fun part! What a difference between naked wood and the dark red mahogany color. I conditioned the wood first. The directions say to stain within two hours of conditioning so by the time I was done conditioning the whole room, I started staining. I used a staining pad and just rubbed the stain on. The LOML followed close behind wiping off the excess stain. We were quite the team. I looked cooler though because I had knee pads for my bony knees!! We both wore respirator masks so we didn’t get headaches from the fumes.
STEP #8
The LOML and I took turns polyurethaning every 4 hours for 6 times and VOILA!
STEP #9
We had to add a transition piece of wood between the new wood floors and the old ones in the hallway so we bought three 12 foot transition pieces at Lowes, conditioned, stained, and polyed the three pieces. Then we screwed them to the existing floor.
STEP #10
We had to add shoe molding around the whole room to hide any gaps we may have had from short boards. We bought primed shoe molding from Lowes, I painted them the same white as the trim and we nailed them all in for a nice clean look. I had to touch up a few places where we got stain on the trim, too. OOPS!
THE FINISHED FLOOR!!
We bought the new rug at Home Depot for $199 for an 8×10 Shaw Living Castile area rug in beige/cream. It’s shaggy and soft on the toes. I LOVE IT!!
It feels great to walk into our brand new family room. No dirty stained carpet anymore. YEAH!!!
A busy weekend for us. How was yours?
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The floor looks beautiful. What a great idea to use plywood! All the floors in our house are wood (except one bathroom and the laundry room), and I love them.
I thought it would feel and look rougher than our other professional wood floors but it is just as smooth and shiny. I LOVE THEM!!! Thanks for reading. Happy Thanksgiving! ~Linda
Wow! Linda, Looks great!!! Just in time for Thanksgiving!!!
Hoa
Thanks Hoa! Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! ~Linda
Absolutely amazing! Who knew plywood could look so good. Now go and enJOY all the money you saved.
Thanks Joy! I saved some money just in time for Christmas. I can never get ahead with the savings
. Happy Thanksgiving! ~Linda
The plywood flooring looks great! I would never guess it was actually plywood. We are trying to figure out flooring for our house, and this might be a good option vs. laminate wood. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Laura! It’s so much smoother than I thought it would be after six coats of polyurethane. We absolutely love it! Happy Thanksgiving! ~Linda
This looks gorgeous!! We laid our own hardwood flooring downstairs & have been toying around with the idea of replacing our carpet upstairs with plywood, but I was so intimidated to try it. I absolutely love how yours turned out!! Thanks for listing all of your costs & materials, too — it really helps! Totally pinning this
Thanks Casey~We are enjoying them thoroughly. We are also enjoying the savings! Just in time to spend it on Christmas! Thanks for visiting. Happy Thanksgiving! ~Linda
This turned out beautiful. Who knew plywood would look like this? You guys did an awesome job!
Linda
Queen Bee Cottage
Thanks Linda (I like your name by the way!)~ If I didn’t see it for myself, I would never have thought it would turn out so good. We love them! Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful ~ Linda
This looks amazing! I can’t believe its plywood!
I can’t wait to show my hubby!
Thanks Jen~I think my husband is cursing the person who stuck the idea in my head. It is absolutely beautiful BUT a lot of work!! Thank goodness we’re still married
Hope your weekend is going well ~ Linda
Your floor turned out wonderful. As it should after all of that hard work. I have a secret…we have 12 sheets of plywood out in the shop just waiting to replace our dirty carpet. Now we just need to find the time to do this. You’ve inspired me…now I’ll have to work on the hubby. Nice work!
Hey Sherry~ Thanks for appreciating our hard work. It was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears, let me tell you! Good luck getting the hubby on board. I just showed my husband a blog that showed someone laying beautiful floors (exactly what mine does) and he was with me! Hope mine can work for you! Good luck! ~Linda
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Wow, it’s gorgeous!!! I want to rip up all the floors in my house after reading this! I absolutely love it!
Anna
askannamoseley.com
P.S. The comment above mine is spam, you might want to delete it.
Thanks Anna! We’re enjoying them immensely! Thank you for the spam warning too. Just deleted it. Have a great week! ~Linda
Huh?! I am totally blown away by this! I would have never thought to use plywood for new flooring, let alone cut it up in to strips and lay it down. Wow! Impressive. I can see that it was a lot of hard work, but I am sure you are relishing your new floors.
Fantastic work!
Julie
Thanks Julie~ We’re loving them!! It was a lot of work but it was fun to do it with family. We all learned a lot. Thanks for reading! ~Linda
Wow that is gorgeous!!
xx Holly
Thanks Holly!
I would never have thought that was a plywood floor. I didn’t know they could look like that. Good job!
Becky
Thanks Becky! I can’t either. Every time I walk into the room, I just sigh. Goodbye gross carpet hello beautiful wood floors! Thanks for visiting! ~Linda
Floor looks so good! I am so jealous!! Do u think you could use bigger pieces of plywood? Just wondering if it might still look as good with little less work. We desperately need to replace our carpet (actually our whole main level) but don’t have much time to do a big project. (We have two sets of twins- it’s a little crazy!).
. I’ll take any advice or ideas! Thanks! Lynn
Hey Lynn~ Thank you very much! In all my research, I read about people using all different sizes. There were some who didn’t even cut the plywood. They just laid it as a whole piece. I understand completely the time crunch of life. The filthy carpet yelling at me for years was a very good incentive to get it done
~Linda
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Your floors look fabulous! I just pinned this, thanks for linking up!
Thanks Steph! LOVE LOVE LOVE your blog!! ~Linda
These floors are beautiful you would never think they were plywood! I would love if you would share this at my blog hop! http://www.ablossominglife.com/2012/12/frugal-crafty-home-hop-2.html
Thanks Amy! I just shared on your blog hop. Thanks for the invite. ~Linda
Wow! Absolutely beautiful!! Thanks for linking up to our blog hop! Follow me at lilywhite-designs.com!
OMGosh…I have never heard of such a thing and definitely had to see it to believe it (I’m originally from the Show-Me State/Missouri…sorry!). Your new family room is absolutely gorgeous! Love it! Will have to show the husband…I’m wanting to convert my formal living room into a home office/crafting zone…and hate the carpet we have. This might be the answer to pricey wood flooring that wood never match up to the original stain anyway!
Blessings,
Valerie
Good luck Valerie! We absolutely love our new floors and I don’t miss the carpet at all! Happy New Year!
WOW. I never would have thought plywood would look that good! Thanks so much for linking up to Frugal Crafty Home!
WOw, Linda looks great! we have laid our own floors and it is some seriously hard work!:)
Thanks for linking up last week at the Humble Brag. Hope you’ll come back tomorrow to link up. Also the Silhouette Cameo giveaway ends this weekend!
Cool! It’s gr8 that your hubby helps you out.
I definitely couldn’t have done it without him. He’s a true blessing and the LOML (Love of My Life)!!
Holy – cow. It looks amazing! Seriously – I want to come over and gush over how amazing it looks in person. That’s so awesome. You have one dang good lookin’ family room now.
Thanks Rachel~Just walking into the room, it feels like a completely different space. More elegant! Thanks for coming by. Please come back soon! Happy New Year! ~Linda
I just posted our in-progress plank ceiling in our dining room and I swear, as we were nailing it up Sunday night, I said to my husband, this would be pretty cool as wood flooring. And now, two days later, I can see EXACTLY what it looks like as a floor. So. Awesome. Seriously. A genius idea to get the look of hardwood floors without the insane cost. Four thumbs up.
Thanks Mindy! If I can save a dime, I’m gonna do it!! And I’m so happy with the room, no one knows it was a lot cheaper! Thanks for coming by! Happy New Year! ~Linda
That looks awesome! Just showed my fiance, going to ask him to do this. I was just wondering, how large was your room that you did?
Thank you so much! My husband tries to ban me from reading blogs because it means more work for him!! I love getting ideas from blogland! Good luck on your floors! My family room is 16×21. Happy New Year! ~Linda
Hi. Your floor looks beautiful!! I have a question, though. Did you leave any sort of gap to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood? I would love to do this, but worry about that. Thanks.
Great question. Yes we left about 1/16″ between. Some of the gaps are a bit bigger and some are smaller because some of the pieces were not perfectly straight. I think the bigger gaps give it a little characeter. So far, the floors are still absolutely beautiful! Thanks for reading! ~Linda
Can you tell me what kind of plywood you used and the thickness?
3/4″ grade A on one side, grade C on the other.
This tutorial can be really helpful for installing plywood flooring, it sure looks easy after reading the above post but i am sure you must be knowledgeable enough to do this without any mistakes.
Hi Linda! Your floors are b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!!!! Thanks for the detailed tutorial, I am so inspired, and my husband is on board too =D
Question, how long did this take you both, did I read that you did it over a week-end? Just wondering about applying the Poly, etc…timeframe estimates.
It took us about three days ALL day. We put the poly on, waited four hours, light sanding, put coat 2 on, waited four hours, then we put four more coats on sanding lightly before the last coat. It monotonous but so worth it!! Thanks for reading!~Linda
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Beautiful floors! I am curious about the nailing process. What size and style nails did you use, and did you stick to the pattern shown in your first diagram? I tried to locate the nail holes in the other pictures but couldn’t, did you putty the nail holes before you stained? Again, lovely floors and thanks!
Thanks Lynn! We used 1 1/2″ finishing nails.We rented a finish pneumatic nailer gun and it was a lot of fun to use! We did not fill in the nail holes. We just stained over them and I think it just adds character to the floor. We all walk on them with bare feet and it is very smooth. We absolutely love our floors. Are you thinking of laying wood floors? It was a lot of work but oh so worth it. I really want to do every room. Thanks for reading. Hope you’re enjoying your weekend. ~Linda