A patch for a hardwood floor?

[rch3791]

Hi,

The previous owner of our house remodeled a few rooms around the kitchen.

Before remodeling, old dining room had hardwood floors and the kitchen had tile floors. After remodeling, new dining room encroached at part of the kichen. They covered the new dining room with a carpet.

I want to take down the carpet, but I will end up with a dining room which is 3/4 covered with a hardwood floor and 1/4 covered with carpet over particle board.

I have no idea how to patch the floor with new hardwood so it doesn't look ugly. Some contractors say it can't be done, some say it "they will try their best" to match the floor.

Any hints?

[mcnuttz]

We just bought an older home the first of the year. I was thrilled to pull up the carpet and find hardwood floors. The floors were painted, so I rented a sander and worked on 3 rooms for the better part of a month.

I started off with 20 grit paper that would basically cut the paint off the boards, and straighten up the curl edges of the boards. I worked up through several grits, until I finished the floors with 100 grit. It was slick as glass and I was highly impressed with myself.

My fiance and I were getting ready to leave for the night. I swept up all the sawdust and threw it in the trashcan. One more look back on the floor and we were gone.

The next morning when we arrived, we smelled smoke. We had not used the fireplace, so I was freaked out. I walked into the living room to see the hole the size of the trash can in the floor. Luckily the house didn't burn up....the sawdust smoldered all night and eventually melted the plastic trash can. I was heart broken.

All that work and time and now the floor was ruined. I had never felt so bad, but we were just glad that our house didn't burn up.

I never could find any boards that matched up with my originals. I managed to find some though that I could rip the very edge off of.

To start with, I had to tear out the boards that had burned. I knew that I did not want to just cut out a square and just fill it in with new boards. I wanted my floor to look like it had never been burned. So I started at the first side of the hole and tore the board back to the nearest floor joist. The next board I may have torn back to 2 or 3 floor joists. If the board was really long, I wouldn't tear the whole thing out, I would just cut it off one of the floor joists. The main thing was making sure that the boards were staggered. I didn't want the patch to be so apparent....I think I did a pretty decent job. If I can figure out how to post pictures on here, I'd be glad to share them with you if you like.

With your floor, I'd say it's doable, but you must have patience. You may have to cut back some of your original boards, just to make it look like you're not just patching a hole. You don't want someone to see your patch. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance, I'll be happy to help in any way that I can!

[mrcaptainbob]

What a story! [:0] Never heard of anything like that before! That sure is a good lesson to remember! Thanks for sharing THAT one!!

[mcnuttz]

Yes, it was terrible. It was my first experience with spontaneous combustion, although there may have been nothing spontaneous about it. Please remember: if you have been sanding floors with a fine grit sandpaper, let the sawdust stay on the floor overnight. I filled the trash can half full of sawdust from 100 grit paper. The dust apparently was so hot, that as it was dumped into the can, the combustion occured. As I said before, we're just glad we still have a house to come home to!

On a side note....we had just signed our insurance policy the day before. And it just so happened that we signed up for double fire coverage! That wouldn't have looked good, now would it?