DIY Rustic Farmhouse Wide Plank Plywood Flooring - a closeup of the distressing and Knots



The first farmhouse wide plank flooring made from plywood project we did was in the dining room earlier in the year.

Well, we loved it so much we did the same wide plank flooring in the living room.

For the most part, both the floors were done the same way, with a couple of exceptions. In this article, we’ll go over the differences between the two floors.

Check out the dining room plywood floor article to see more of the step by step details.

As far as time goes, the dining room’s wide plank flooring took about a week to finish and the living room took a lot longer.

The living room is a bit bigger, but what really added time to the project were the shimming and the end grain flooring inlay.

From start to finish, it took a little over two weeks to finish the living room floor.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase any of these products, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. We recommend these products only because we have experience with them and use them for our own projects. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.

What We Did Different With This Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring

The methods we used for the flooring in the dining room and the living room were pretty much the same.

In the living room, we pulled up the old carpet, removed staples, painted the sub-floor a dark color and put down the floor the same way it was done in the dining room.

The width, length and thickness of the plywood planks was the same, and we cut, sanded, distressed, stained and added 3 coats of polyurethane to the flooring in almost the same way.

There were some small changes we made that saved us a little time and may have added some more character to the plywood plank floor.

Here are the things we did a bit differently this go around.

We Didn’t Sand Between Polyurethane Coats

When we did the dining room floor, we lightly sanded the bumps out of the coat of polyurethane with 120 grit sandpaper.

With the living room floors, we figured that the bumps on the plywood planks would even out a little after multiple coats of poly were applied.

Besides, the bumps would add a bit more texture making the floors less slippery. Not that the dining room floors are slippery – it was just a way of justifying it in my head. 😉

The only concern I had was how it would feel walking barefoot on the floor with more texture.

Turns out, despite clearly feeling the additional texture when running your hand on the plank, it was barely noticeable when walking on it barefoot.

The Shopping List

Tools List
Here’s a list of the tools we used on this project, it’s basically the same list of tools from the dining room flooring project.

Affiliate links below may be to similar items when exact items couldn’t be found online.

Cordless Finish Nailer

Extra Battery For Finish Nailer

Belt Sander

Palm Sander

Miter Saw

Circular Saw

Cross Cut Saw Blade

Oscillating Multi-Tool

Hearing Protection Ear Muffs

Table Saw

 

Supplies List

These are the supplies used on this project.

Affiliate links below may be to similar items when exact items couldn’t be found online.

Varathane Cherrywood Gel Stain – we used about 7 quarts

Water Based Oil-Modified Poluyrathane – we used 2 gallons

3″ Natural Bristle brush – 6 brushes to apply the stain

4″ Polyester Synthetic Brush – 4 brushes to apply the poly

Masking Paper – We used the masking paper to protect the deck when applying the stain and poly

6 Gauge 1 1/2″ Finish Nails

A New Character Builder Was Used

The same original cast of character builders was used with the plywood planks in the living room. A hammer, pliers, and a propane torch… and this time we added a utility knife to the arsenal.

For the dining room, we would dig into cracks in the wood using the sanders to open the cracks up and soften the edges.

This time we used a utility knife to lengthen and widen the cracks in the wood.

Then we softened the edges of the cracks with the sander.

The result was even better than we imagined.

The deep cracks we made with the utility knife gave us the aged, farmhouse wide plank flooring look we were going for.

You wouldn’t even guess that it was plywood.

DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Close up of the Distressing Done With A Utility Knife

Shameless Plug

If you are looking for a great house to rent in the Poconos, Feels Like Heaven may be the perfect fit for you!

Feels Like Heaven - A Premium 5 Bedroom Vacation Rental in The Poconos, PA

We Added Shims

The living room floors were much more uneven than the floors in the dining room.

To the point where we needed to add shims in the low spots to try and level things off a little.

I went around the floor with a straight edge, and where ever there was a dip, I added shims.

Since I knew I needed a good amount of shims, I made them out of a sheet of 1/4″ plywood. I ripped the sheet into 1″ strips using the table saw.

Once the floor was shimmed, we painted the floor a dark brown color, just like we did in the dining room.

DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Wood Strips Used To Fill The Low Spots
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Starting The Plywood Flooring Install

The Living Room Plywood Floor Is Finished!

Like I said, the living room floor took much longer to do than the dining room floor did. It took a little over two weeks to finish, had I not messed up with the wood slice accent flooring, we would have finished in about 2 weeks.

Check out the wood slice accent flooring project here

We love the farmhouse wide plank flooring in both the dining room and the living room. This style was the perfect fit for this house, we couldn’t have imagined a better fit.

Between the two floors, I’d say I’d stick to the steps used on the living room floor.

Sanding between poly coats seems to have been unnecessary, and using the utility knife to expand on the cracks in the wood added sooo much more character to the living room floor – LOVE IT!

Here are a few more pictures of the stained plywood floors on the living room floor.

Let me know what you think, is there something you would have done differently?

Share your thoughts in the comments below!

 

DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Close up of the Distressing
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - Close up of The Plywood Floor In The Living Room By The Wood Accent
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Finished Plywood Floor Seen From The Stairs
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor In The Living Room By The Wood Accent
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished
DIY Wide Plank Plywood Flooring
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Another Close up of the Distressing
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished - Seen From The Corner Of The Fireplace
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood - The Plywood Floor Finished By The Fireplace
DIY Plywood Plank Flooring

Enjoy this post? Pin it and share it with others!

DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood Fireplace - Portrait
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring Made From Plywood Closeup - Portrait
DIY Farmhouse Wide Plank Wide Plank Plywood Flooring

About Steve

Hi, I'm Steve. My wife Sandy and I have been doing DIY projects for years now and we finally created a blog to help share our projects and ideas.

We hope you find these posts useful. 🙂

Join The Family!

Sign up and receive the latest ideas via email.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

8K Shares
Share
Tweet
Pin8K
Share