Another Floor Question
 

The second floor of the triplex, which will be my office, has been refloored with LVP over the original wood in all but one room. The floor in that room is shown here.

I need to get the whole second floor to a consistent floor look, suitable for an office where the occasional client will visit, but which will 99% of the time be occupied by just me and possibly an office mate. No dogs, very little traffic, just one or two guys coming in, sitting at desks.

It seems that I can either have the LVP removed and the original floor refinished throughout, or have matching LVP laid in that one room and to fill in an area where a partition wall was built before the LVP was laid.

The second floor is about 800 sf.

What would you do?

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I’m cutting out baseboards and wall bottoms, will be having the whole floor rewired. I figure better do whatever I’m going to do to the floors before I repair the walls and put new baseboards on.

How cheap are you? Seriously.

Starting with cheap:

Get similar LVL color and finish that room. No one but you and us will know about it and we ain't gonna to visit you anytime soon

Rip out all and start fresh with LVL. Remember to prep to make sure floor is flat with little to no humps

I always suggest this but this isn't cheap. Lay 1.5" 1/4 sawn Oak floor through out and buy the nicest couch when I come for a visit.

Can't you just floor sander it and then polyurethane it?

The floor register in the doorway is a nice touch. Too bad it wasn’t centered, eh?

looks like fir. Rent an ORBITAL floor sander. They are far less aggressive than the drum sander. Sand it a bit. Put on a high quality water based finish. Done. It will look like a million bucks.

I would get 2-3 quotes to have the floor refinished . That gives you a price point that you are either acceptable with or not . Then there are options like rent a floor sander and do it yourself . Or if that's too much work you cover up that nice wood with some other product . Lots of options .

Will this floor be visible to business customers? If so it might be worth it to sand and finish, old fir can look beautiful. It's not cheap, the entire 2nd floor will need to be emptied and you'll not have access for at least a week (I've done this hundreds of times). The cheapest fix is new LVT in the one room of course. The odds are you'll not be able to match the existing plus the grain is running into the entry which makes it trickier to spice in. I recommend a totally different looking product and run the boards perpendicular to existing. If you try to match and come close it will look like a mistake. Also, the only construction to be done after a new floor should be baseboards

Yes, occasionally clients will visit. I am leaning toward pulling off the LVP and refinishing. I'm going to ask the previous owner what the condition of the currently covered wood was. The second floor is empty now and will be for some months.

Question: would you have the floor done "last", after everything else is done (electrical, kitchen, bathroom, lighting, wall repair, painting)? I kind of assume that would make sense.

Ideally the only construction to be done after the floor re finish should be baseboard installation

You sure this is for clients and not for yourself?:D

You know there are damages once LVL is pulled on a house at that age especially if it has been a rental for a number of years. Replacing pieces of TnG wubfloor isn't difficult and I know you have that nice job site saw.

I should mention also that if you have the fir flooring re finished don't expect it to be uniform and perfect. It'll be a rustic look but clean and awesome. I love this look. I often have to replace a board here and there due to water damage or splits and keep old fir boards on hand just for this. Like I said, it's not cheap to have it done right. It's all in the sanding and prep. My advice is to have a pro do it or it's bound to look cobby

Ok, do it last but before reinstalling baseboards.

I'm ok with a vintage look for the original floors. The LVP just looks weird in this old house.

Yeah, it kinda is for me, not just for clients. My clients couldn't care less, I'm been working with most of them for a decade. My current office has hundred year old concrete floors, never an issue.

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I've done plenty of floors for myself but for over 50 years mostly for paying customers of course. This is my mountain cabin floor. 30 years ago I dropped a yellow pine, let it blue up a bit before milling it into T&G flooring and refinished it last year.
When I'm on a wood floor job I have many saws on hand. Table, miter, Saber, multi tool, undercut, toe kick, various hand saws and scrapers too. Also a powered hand planer and sometimes a 12" planer. And of course pneumatic finish guns, cleat nailers and staplers. On tool set up day on the job my truck is packed but I usually use it all.

Spoke to the previous owner. He is a (retired) contractor, had the LVP floor installed 30 years ago. He says it is plastic laminate, glued at the seams, on a layer of “sound proofing” (I see some sort of paper under the exposed edges of the laminate). He says the fir under the laminate looks the same as the exposed fir. Doesn’t recall any major damage to the areas of floor that he had covered up. Hmm. He was fixing the place up for a rental, and figured the laminate would be a forever floor. He was a bit miffed that I’m thinking of tearing it out.

I installed a lot of that glue together LVT back then. To remove, set a circular saw to thickness and grid it up into manageable sized pieces like 3'x6'. Not too heavy to carry out and stacks nicely for the dump. It sounds like your fir subfloor is a good candidate for finishing! Don't worry about black spots, dents or scratches too deep to sand out. It's all part of the look and the look is cool. I like to finish those with a sealer and 2 coats of satin water based urathane. Bona Traffic is the one I use. Extremely durable, doesn't yellow with age and looks just right for a rustic re-finish. If the PO ever sees the end result he'll agree with your choice. My base price is $4 per foot. Extra for adhesive removal, board replacement, R&R furniture. Get at least 2 estimates.