Barn Siding for flooring - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Danno6102 · 06-06-2007, 08:11 AM

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

Zero Punch · 06-06-2007, 06:01 PM

Tear down the barn, sell the lumber on ebay or Craigelist and go buy some flooring.

Tmrrptr · 06-12-2007, 03:19 PM

Quote:

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

Dan, I've seen soft wood used on floors... It gets scraped too easily. yet, it was going in a res for some old folk who would probably be real nice to everything! Another case was 1 x 12 fir put down w square nails, in a log cabin. I'll bet it ended up a mess, because the family had over 1/2 dozen young girls... their traffic, and the traffic they would generate would probably have killed the floor by now. Clean that wood up once you strip it down, brighten it, then seal it and use it on select walls of your choice for best effect. Use a black backer behind it... we've use visqueen or 15# felt so theres a uniform surface that will eventually be see behind it. r

RISENRUN · 06-14-2007, 01:57 PM

If you would like a rustic look go for it! My old ladies uncle tore down a barn that was built by his great grandfather. He used all of the wood for the floors in his beadroom and dining room. If you think you could only get 1/2" I would think about maybe having it T & G so it would lay flat rather than curling back up.