I Made an End Grain Wood Floor From Scratch and Saved Myself $4000!

Brett Lipton
by Brett Lipton
6 Materials
$468
20 Hours
Advanced

One day I had come across a flooring in an old church and became intrigued, I had never seen anything like it before. It was a wood floor, but as opposed to the side of the grain being exposed, it was the end of the grain. I decided that I needed to recreate this old world craftsmen appearance in my own home. Full details of the entire project are here: http://goo.gl/pV51hA

A few months ago I purchased a house that was carpeted from wall to wall with the most horrible carpeting. Before purchasing it I had done some snooping and after lifting several corners, realized that underneath the carpeting was hardwood flooring, throughout. So, I knew after purchasing the home it wouldn't be much of a task to rip up this eye sores, spend a few hours sanding and refinishing and I would be happy with the new look. below is what the dining room looked like on closing day.

After ripping up the carpeting, this is what I found in the dining room... MDF. Not what I wanted to see. I had hopes that their might be some hardwood under it so my adventure continued.

After ripping up the first MDF subfloor (and having started some painting), I stumbled across this, more of less of what I wanted to see, linoleum flooring.

I went out and found twelve, 8 foot long 4 x 6 timbers of reclaimed yellow heart pine that I proceeded to cut into 1,800 4 x 6 tiles. I set up my Dewalt DW705 chop saw with a 1/2" stop to make the cuts quickly and consistently. This process took about 5 hours. When I was done I was left with a completely filled 32 gallon trash can of sawdust that I saved for later. I had plans for that too.

Here are some of the piles and piles of tiles and more tiles

Along the way I decided to border the room to accent the edges.

After the tiles were set, I sealed them with a coat of polyurethane, lightly thinned with about 30% mineral spirits.

After the tiles were set, I sealed them with a coat of polyurethane, lightly thinned with about 30% mineral spirits.

After the tiles and border were set and sealed. I made a mixture of sawdust from my cuttings with polyurethane with a ratio of about 2 parts sawdust to 1 part polyurethane

After the tiles and border were set and sealed. I made a mixture of sawdust from my cuttings with polyurethane with a ratio of about 2 parts sawdust to 1 part polyurethane

After letting the grout dry for 3 days, figuring that was enough for the 1/8" wide by 1/2" deep channels to fully dry, I went to work on sanding the floor smooth. I used an orbital sander which took 4 hours, I imagine it took much longer than a drum sander would have, but it saved me a step of needing to do the center of the floor and then follow up with an edger.

The finished product!

I am thrilled with the results and the warm feel or real wood is so much better than the cold feeling of an icy tile, or the disingenuous look of a laminate, which were my second and third, much simpler choices.

Here is a close up of the finished surface.

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
3 of 72 questions
  • Dina Pia Dina Pia on Mar 05, 2021

    When you said "the end of the grain", does it mean is the back side of the tile?

    It looks to me that instead of cutting wood planks transversal, the idea was to cut "slices" from the tree trunk...You can see the rings ( one ring is added per new growth season of a live tree and equals 1 year per ring )...

  • Debra Fonseca Debra Fonseca on Apr 21, 2023

    Question is what did you use to glue all the pieces down to the subfloor?

  • EmmaSurf EmmaSurf on Sep 06, 2023

    This is great. I wonder if you stained the end grain would it take the stain evenly or be blotchy? i also just bought a house with some hardwood but not everywhere so would be nice to try this trick.

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 500 comments
  • Lisa Lisa on Nov 05, 2023

    moaning with joy. and your talent. and your efforts. wow. thank you

  • Teresa Teresa on Nov 05, 2023

    Looks great. What did you glue them to the floor with?

Next