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Elm / Maple for flooring? yes/no thoughts??


Coytee

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I lived in a one up, one down apartment building in Madison, Wisconsin, built in 1917. The daughter of the builder lived next door in the house where she was born. She was 93.

 

The living/dining and two bedrooms had oak flooring, while the kitchen had wonderful built in cabinets and maple flooring. All the floors were in great shape. We moved from there in the mid 1980s when we bought our own home. I just looked at google maps street view and the apartment building and neighboring house are still there. That was a great place, just a block off Lake Mendota and four blocks from the Tenney Park Lagoons.

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There is alot more to think of than if it will work.

You will have to have it dry enough to work with then have it milled to be usable as flooring, you could do this yourself if you have a good  joiner and a plainer. Not even counting the patience to do that much woodworking, there may be somewhere around set up to dry the wood ? Me if I had enough I would do it, just remember it will be very time consuming getting it ready and installing it.  

But I bet in the long run you would have wished you went with standard pre done flooring considering the work..  

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I've put a prefinished oak floor down.  Was work, but I enjoyed it (in perhaps a twisted way).

 

Don't have a joiner but have a 3 1/2 HP router which could do the edges.  In truth....  I'm trying to get her to vacate the idea of this extra room.  The last four rooms we (she) added....  we really only use two of them.  I don't see this one getting much use either so, why spend the funds to build it, then heat/cool it....

 

We both agree though that it would be cool if we could use some of the materials on the farm for it like we did the exterior.  Had some lumber cut.  I bought a planer (Dewalt portable) and a buddy & I were going to plane them down.  Well, the boards varied in thickness.  Meaning the very first board we were going to plane down had hills and valleys anywhere from maybe 1" thick to 1 1/2" thick.  It was going to take us a bunch of passes to get a single side of a single board (12" wide by maybe 16' length) down to a "single pass" on the planer.

 

Said heck with that....loaded them up, took to mill and in about 2-days they had them all planed very nicely to 3/4" and we were done.

 

Yeah, I can appreciate the effort.

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It could be very time consuming. But I like doing this kind of stuff but your talking about alot of square feet which is many boards, but it would be cool,

 

What about using some of the wood for an accent wall, wood looks great on a wall. This was just pine in Rodney's lake house, did the handrail also, he wanted it rough.

 

These walls were made darker later, it's just pine from a local sawmill. 

lake house ,. (2).jpg

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Wife doesn't like knots.  She's making some shutters and I had to get clear pine.

 

We've ripped things out, only to replace them with similar boards....with no knots.

 

(shrugs shoulders....  keeps peace in the house but I don't understand it)

 

 

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Im with Dtel here, the ruff milling can be done at the mill you speak of, then there is the finish milling, jointing, plaining, then using your router to put the tongue and grove on the edges.  Not to mention the correct drying process.   I put pre finished Acacia in winter of 18, 4 tools I wish I had at the time, jointer, planer, tongue and grove bits for my router, and band saw.  Going back, I would have gone with raw Acacia. 

 

My buddy who helped me did a job where the customer wanted walnut installed, finished, than beat to hell and finished again.  Guess it wanted an authentic ruff look. 

 

If I had a mill that could ruff mill 16' boards, I thought it would be cool to custom make flooring, but that would be tricky to get into certain houses. 

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20 minutes ago, Coytee said:

Wife doesn't like knots.  She's making some shutters and I had to get clear pine.

 

We've ripped things out, only to replace them with similar boards....with no knots.

 

(shrugs shoulders....  keeps peace in the house but I don't understand it)

 

 

Better you than me, clear Pine, it's really close to the price of Oak.

 

Most people prefer knots, it cost more, knotty pine, cypress and most others are more expensive. Tell her the no knot thing shows she has cheap taste....that should push her over the edge. :lol:

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2 hours ago, Coytee said:

I've put a prefinished oak floor down.  Was work, but I enjoyed it (in perhaps a twisted way).

 

Don't have a joiner but have a 3 1/2 HP router which could do the edges.  In truth....  I'm trying to get her to vacate the idea of this extra room.  The last four rooms we (she) added....  we really only use two of them.  I don't see this one getting much use either so, why spend the funds to build it, then heat/cool it....

 

We both agree though that it would be cool if we could use some of the materials on the farm for it like we did the exterior.  Had some lumber cut.  I bought a planer (Dewalt portable) and a buddy & I were going to plane them down.  Well, the boards varied in thickness.  Meaning the very first board we were going to plane down had hills and valleys anywhere from maybe 1" thick to 1 1/2" thick.  It was going to take us a bunch of passes to get a single side of a single board (12" wide by maybe 16' length) down to a "single pass" on the planer.

 

Said heck with that....loaded them up, took to mill and in about 2-days they had them all planed very nicely to 3/4" and we were done.

 

Yeah, I can appreciate the effort.

Use the varying thickness wood on accent walls or maybe a sunken cove in ceilings. 

 

I had solid maple flooring and sold it when I saw scratched up walnut in someone's home from their dogs.  I put in porcelain tile that looks like wood.  3' length, the 2' stuff looks wrong.  3' was hard to get but I bought it as a leftover lot from the City Center hotel.  I put it in about 10 years ago, still looks like the day I put it in, the 3' stuff is now readily available. 

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