Barn Siding For Flooring

Originally Posted by Danno6102

I have an old barn on my property that I plan on tearing down in a few years. I had the ingenius (or maybe not) idea about taking the old siding off, planing it down & using it for the floors throughout my first floor. The barn is 107ish years old, so there are deep cracks that go into the board about 1/8"-1/4". The boards are 3/4"-1" thick & they are cupped slightly also, so I would need to plane both sides. Leaving me with about 1/2" thick plank.

My question is, is this feaible with 1/2" thick plank? Is 1/2" enough to tongue & groove it or should I overlap them or just butt them? Will I have a lot of scrap from splitting, being so old & dry? I thought about just glueing & face nailing them for a weathered type look of the nails, or over drilling the nail holes & plugging with dowels. I saw that in a old restaurant last weekend.

Any ideas or thoughts from the hardwood flooring experts?

Thanks,
Dan