Let’s keep talking about floors!


Most of the house is 2.25” wide oak plank flooring.   I needed a cheap way to make the middle of the house, where the floors are damaged and painted, match the rest of the house… at least visually.

So I found this peel and stick vinyl plank flooring by Trafficmaster at Home Depot.  The color is nearly an exact match (it’s “honey oak”).  


The only problem is that it is 6” wide planks.  I felt like this would not quite work because of the wider planks.  So I took an unconventional extra step to cut the planks narrower. I used a makeshift jig and a utility knife to cut them in half.  The 3” wide planks are much closer to the original flooring.  Brilliant!  

But…

Yeah, there’s still a problem.  I’m not a machine.  (really, I’m not!)  The cut pieces aren’t exactly square and straight, and neither is the floor! So there are gaps between planks that are not ideal.  


Ironically, the imperfections might be the perfect way to increase the visual connection between new and old floors!  The old floor, through natural shifting and aging, has uneven gaps, visual seams, and generally weird bits.  So having ugly gaps in the new floor makes it look “right.”  I just needed to seal it so there’s no way for water to get under the floor and the blue color of the painted floor doesn’t show through. Here’s a tip you can use!  Trafficmaster vinyl flooring is groutable!  Rather than actual grout, I used silicone caulking in “cedar tan”  It’s a detailed process of smearing caulk with a spreader across the seams and using damp rags to remove the excess.  So it’s a lot like real grout.  The color makes the seams blend in just enough. Here's the side by side, top of the pic is the new vinyl plank, bottom is the original oak floor.

Another good thing about doing this with this material, is I was able to do part of the floor at a time.  There’s no underlayment and no demo.  This worked out budget wise.  I have done 2/3 of the floor, so far. I hope to get to the rest in January.  I may put a coat of poly sealant on top when it's all done.... haven't decided.







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