OT Replacing Flooring & More craziness - new house - hah

Not sure if your flooring is original cherry wood color or dyed cherry wood. However cherry wood being what it is here is a word of caution. When it is new, sanded and varnished or whatever it will look fantastic, - however cherry wood that is subjected to direct sunlight will darken faster than cherry wood that is shaded - sometimes within a few days. Soooo when you have a chair or table near a window it will cast a shadow on the floor. In a few days the cheery wood that is NOT in the shadow will go naturally darker than the cherry wood that IS shadowed. During the day you will hardly notice the difference but at night when your room is lit by artificial light you will really see the difference and it will look terrible. You can remove whatever is causing the shadow for a few days and hope for the best. The part that was in the shadow will darken up and naturally so will the part that was never in a shadow. After about 6 months? in direct sunlight all cherry wood darkens to it's natural shade and remains that way unless sanded - assuming all the cherry wood was cut from the same tree. Last thing that you want to do is have a small scatter rug or object blocking sunlight from shining on a new cherry wood floor. You can't sue your contractor over that one.

Having said all that, most hardwood flooring these days is made from maple, birch or oak and dyed a specific color. I question that you can match a new floor color to an old naturally darkened cherry wood one. If old flooring in not in too bad a condition, my first choice would be to sand and varnish it. Old flooring that hasn't shrunk or worn too much is the best you can have assuming that it was nailed down properly. Squeaks can usually be cured by driving in long finishing nails in the squeak areas and filling in the nail holes with wood filler or wax. One has to be careful not to use nails that are too long or one may hit an electrical wire running under the floor.

However your contractor should know all these things.

A squeaky floor in front of the fridge or cupboard where momma hides the cookies can be a real pain in the butt. LOL

Fred

Don't backstitch to email just stitchit. If you are on thin ice you might as well dance!

W.I.P. - "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oriental Maiden".

Fred - thanks for the response. We learned about "real" cherry darkening. We're being careful with the kitchen cabinets which are solid (not veneered) but some kind of maple or birch - even though they are stained like a light cherry. When we picking the wood blinds we were warned that the cherry sample that matched now wouldn't in a while - hence we choose something else.

You're right. I should've been specific - this is oak, in slightly wider than standard planks, and stained a dark/warm cherry color. Even so, we're a little dubious, and feel that if they can't match it so the floor looks reasonable, then just relay the interior of the dining-room, and put a border of something else to break it before the room opens into the foyer/hallway. Since we have a very open plan - the dining room opens through a casement (rectangular arch) off the foyer - about 3.5 ft wide, on an angle, then parallel to the "hallway" is another 6-7 ft opening. Which is why it would look really odd if the floor doesn't match to the entry. The entry flows into the great room.

All good info. In the last house, we sanded down, and then just lightly re-stained and varnished. Supposedly this stuff has 12 coats of poly on it

- but, with a dog, who can tell. Today's concerns are that looking at the subflooring, some of the plywood sections are pretty gouged up, and the seams are uneven, with some small areas - a few square inches - delaminating. Not a good thing - as we're concerned these goofballs might not but a membrane to level, or whatever. Although, last time the tarpaper member did kind of prevent the subfloor from getting soaked.

For the 2nd issue - DH walked down into the lower level, and is checking out the unfinished space (my future workroom) under the DR. Lo and behold - 2 large soaked through areas - about 10" wide by 3 ft long, and a smaller about 8" wide by 10" long - in the concrete wall - emanating from the high window (it's the basement level) . Visible because the insulation has been pulled off and is yet to be replaced. Great pictures for the lawsuit ;^) Amazing - since they told us that "all" the windows on the first level were re-flashed. I guess they didn't bother doing the little basement ones - and this window is at grade - not sunk down with a well around it.

Excuse my while I spew - the operative word is "should" - or more precisely maybe does know, but will they do correctly.

Very true - but we have tile in the kitchen - and I definitely don't want that squeaking!

Anyhow - thanks for the advice. We're off to Lowe's - returning extra stuff, and picking up some 0000 sanding stuff, and brushes. Going to spend the rest of the weekend doing some furniture finishing. Lots of staining - and DH has allowed me to be creative with the new TV unit for the great room

- it's going to be stained a hunter green, with some whitewashing. No sense trying to match all the cherry furniture - I'd never get it - so we'll do something different. He did seem scared when I mentioned something about distressing.. Ah, well. At least since we only have sub-floor open in the living room - and 3 windows - I can work in there with good ventilation and no mess fear (although I did dropcloth, covered with lots of paper). What fun.

Happy stitchin' guys 'n gals, ellice

OK it should be easy to match the old floor color to the new floor color - it just takes a bit of tender loving care. Lightly sand the old and stain to match the new. Use light stain at first and then a slightly darker stain, etc, etc, until a match is achieved. The only colored wood that I know of that does not change color when exposed to direct sunlight is wood that has been stained with Aniline dye. Aniline dye comes in powder form, you mix it with alcohol and water and just brush or roll it on. You have to be a bit careful not to overlap brush or roller marks too much. After the whole works has dried (1 - 2 hours) you can sand any overlaps to even things out. Using aniline dye for the first time is not for the feint of heart. LOL

On top of the sub-floor I would lay down a layer of thin felt paper versus tar paper. Tar paper will stink for ages. You could have them install a new thin sub-floor on top of the old one to smooth things out - problem is matching floor height (surface) at door ways or where the new floor meets the old floor. I would apply a good glue bath where the plywood has separated, add screws where it squeeks, fill in depressions with a latex base filler material, seal the whole affair with a few coats of latex paint, put down a layer of felt paper and then the new flooring.

I do not like the new pre-finished wood floor coverings. No one varnishes them which seals the joints. If and when a pet pees on the floor it soaks through the joints and lays under the floor untill it dries. Scrub as you may to clean things up, pets will smell the pee that dried under the new floor and pee there again. Don't blame the pet - it smells the spot and thinks that is the place to go. I'm told pouring a fair amount of water mixed with chlorophyll and letting it soak through helps. I know adding a chlorophyll tablet to a female pets' daily food ration when they are in heat stops male pets from coming around for a sniff or whatever - LOL

Have some one dig down a few feet around your basement windows. You will probably find that who ever installed the basement concrete missed tarring a few spots. The external concrete basement walls should have a coating of tar on them to prevent water from seeping through the concrete. In the old days metal rods where used to hold the concrete forms together as the concrete was being poured. The forms were removed and in all cases the metal rods were cut off flush with the concrete. Over time these rods if not tarred over rust out leaving holes in the concrete for water and creepy crawlers to enter into the basement.

Fred

't backstitch to emailjust stitchit. The closer you get to perfection the harder it is to achieve.

W.I.P. - "Fiddler >

Nice idea - but I tend to think these gus aren't going to do that - rather since it's the prefinished stuff, they're just going to try and match it. IF it doesn't match, then they'll just have to replace the entire room.

I saw some nice kind of membrane that was better than tar paper - maybe it was a newer version of felt paper. The "tar-paper" that they used originally didn't seem to stink at all - it probably is something else, that they called tar-paper. Nice idea about sealing it all with some paint. I'm not sure if we should just make them replace one of the sheets of sub-floor. We'll see.

Interesting about the chlorophyll. So far we haven't had any pee accidents

- which is pretty amazing. But our pup seems quite concerned with approval, and his very few accidents have actually been on the tile floor in the breakfast room. Which is easily cleaned (especially with dark tile & grout). Hoping this didn't just jinx us.

The foundation was poured into forms on site, and we did see the tar coverage - which actually came above the level of the land. They didn't have rods through the forms - more like a clamping system over. And any of the foundation that is above grade is covered with stone (they call it the water table being finished). Requirement in this development, and it does look pretty nice. I'm pretty sure that this latest leak is the flashing around the window, or bad installation into the concrete/foundation wall.

Thanks for the advice, ellice