Work continues on my house. As mentioned before, I’ve been doing the floor in my basement and now it is nearly complete. A couple of pictures:

Hard to get good photos of how a floor truly looks, but these aren’t bad and fairly well represent the colour and grain.

This is the same material that I used before, in my first plywood floor project. This time I cut the “planks” wider, about six inches, and to introduce some error in the cutting, I used a saw board and circular saw. This gave some width variation and made some slight gaps between the boards. Like the first time, I beveled the edges of each board before I laid it, to minimize splintering. Each piece is glued down with polyurethane construction adhesive and face nailed with 1-1/4″ finish nails.

What I am going for here is less refined, rougher, and looking like it’s been here for a long time. Some character, in other words. I like these kind of floors, they put me more at ease. It’s refreshing not having to fret about it getting scratched or dented. Perfect for a basement rec room, I think.

My first time distressing anything, it’s a little intimidating at first. The concept of botching it comes to mind, and having to redo it all to fix that is not appealing. With the first dent, the machine is set in motion, and there is no turning back. I used a variety of “tools”:

Most effective was the tool rest extension for my lathe. It’s a five pound hunk of cast iron and painted black as well. This made some heavy dents that were scuffed with black that look very authentic. Its random shape made for a non-repetitious damage pattern.

The 1/2″ Johnson bar was less satisfactory, leaving shallow dings with no definition. Still, it added to the overall effect. Likewise with the c-clamp vise grips, the damage made by these was barely noticeable.

The plastic tub has what are known as through-bolts. These are used to bolt heavy duty door closers on and I have a great number of these. These were very good, especially when thrown with force, en masse, from the tub. These were also scattered and crushed into the floor by walking on them, though this was less effective than the throwing.

I also emptied about 2000 drywall screws on the floor and walked these in. I scuffed and ground these in with my shoes, but surprisingly, they did very little damage. Some light scratches was all. It’s remarkable how durable this plywood is.

ll of this was done before I applied any finish. I didn’t sand the floor at all, just cleaned it with the shop vac and gave it the first coat of finish. This was the same formula as I used on the family room floor, a mixture of oil based Varathane Polyshades and clear polyurethane. This settled in the cracks, dents and scratches to intensify the effect.

The second coat the next day, just clear polyurethane this time. This went on over the first coat without any sanding. Sanding the first coat would not be a good idea, as it will likely cut through the colour in places.

The third and final coat went on today. I lightly sanded the floor first, to knock down any roughness.

I’m’ very happy with the finished result, and the overall cost of the project was reasonable as well – around $1000 for materials for nearly 600 square feet of floor. Labour was extra, but where this house is concerned, I work for peanuts.