Poconos

DIY Rustic Wide Plank Plywood Flooring

As you’d expect, DIY Rustic Wide Plank Plywood Flooring takes much longer to finish than just installing pre-made planks.

This project was the truest sense of DIY.  Everything from cutting the plywood into wide plank boards, to sanding, staining, finishing and installing the plywood planks down… all of it DIY.

All things considered, the entire project, from start to finish didn’t take that long.

From cutting the planks out of plywood, to finally installing the floors in both the dining room and kitchen – took about a week.

If you’re willing to put in the time and sweat, it is absolutely worth it!

The floors look gorgeous (the pictures don’t do it justice) and you really would not know that they are  stained plywood floors.

Read on to see what it took to make and install our rustic wide plank plywood floors and how you can install your own unique plywood flooring.

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.

Why We Chose Wide Plank Plywood Flooring

Some of the flooring in our Poconos vacation rental needed replacing.  Namely, the floating hardwood floor in the dining room and kitchen and the carpet in the living room.

Our goal was to have new floors that look old, warm, and worn – like they had always been there. Basically, the more it looked like farmhouse flooring or barn wood the better it was for us.

We looked into tile, stone, and hardwood floors. The problem with all of them was that they all needed a level sub-floor and ours was uneven… like really uneven.

Since the entire house is made of rough-cut oak, the flooring is not even close to being level.

That makes tile, stone and even hardwood flooring very difficult to install. The extra difficulty also translates to very expensive installation costs.

It was time to get creative, DIY floors were in our future. To get more flooring ideas we turned to Pinterest. After a lot of scrolling, we came across rustic farmhouse wide plank plywood flooring!

On Pinterest, there was a gazillion (well maybe not quite that many) plywood flooring ideas, but the one that was the best fit for us was the wide plank flooring.

The pictures of the wide plank plywood flooring projects others had posted were incredible – this was it! This was the perfect flooring for uneven floors.

We were sold on the idea.

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!

When In Doubt – Wabi-Sabi

There’s a concept I came across on Pinterest which was instrumental in my choice of plywood over other flooring types.

It’s called wabi-sabi.

It’s a Japanese tradition that is the art of making broken things better than brand new.

The idea is to hi-light the imperfections – make them perfectly imperfect.

With this new perspective, I was looking for imperfections to show off – instead of avoiding them.

If (or when) the floors get a new scuff mark or scratch, it will add to the floor’s character. It’s a very freeing concept that I am really glad I came across.

Click on the picture to see the Pinterest pin that inspired me, I hope it does the same for you.

Why Use Plywood Flooring? It’s Affordable.

Most people decide to install plywood plank flooring because of it’s affordability.

It’s much cheaper to install a plywood floor than traditional hardwood or even a laminate, heck it’s even cheaper than doing vinyl.

For our plywood farmhouse floors, the cost wasn’t much of a factor in our decision-making process.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s always nice to save some dough… it was just lower on our list.

Higher on our list was flooring that was sturdy, looked like it has always been there, fit with the style of the house and would be easy to install on an uneven floor. 

Between the option of making wider planks and the spacing between each one – wide plank plywood flooring was a perfect fit for this house.

The spacing between each board makes it more forgiving in scenarios like ours where the floor isn’t level.

On top of that, the Japanese concept I came across helped me realize that any blemishes the floor will gain as it ages will only add to the floor’s beauty.

So it didn’t need to be as sturdy as hardwood, we’ll just embrace the imperfections that come along with it! 🙂



Another Reason To Use Plywood Floor Planks? The Versatility

Another huge benefit to plywood floor planks is the design versatility.

I love how my plywood plank floors turned out. There really is nothing I would change, but one thing that’s great about plywood planks is that there is no limit to what you can do.

I LOVE the way the rustic plywood floor planks came out, but the plywood planks could have looked just as good with a modern look.

Take a look at plywood floor planks on Pinterest. You’ll see there is no limit to the style, color, shape, size, or texture. It’s all just a matter of preference – how cool is that?

The Cost Of Our DIY Plywood Flooring

We knew that we saved quite a bit of money by choosing plywood faux plank flooring but we didn’t realize how much until someone asked for a breakdown in the comments.

We saved a ton!!

Of course, what you save in dollars you lose in time. We didn’t look at it as a lose of time though, it saw it as a great way to get our creative juices flowing and gave us a flooring that is completely unique – and it saved us a bunch of money to boot! Win – win – win! 

Total Cost
22 sheets of plywood @ $32/sheet = $704
17 quarts of stain @16.30/quart = $276
5 gallons of Poly @ $12/gallon = $60
TOTAL = $1040

Square Feet
22 Sheets * 32 sq. ft./sheet = 704 sq. ft.

$1040 / 704 sq. ft. = $1.47 per sq. ft.

The Down-side to Plywood Flooring

The only negative I saw with plywood floor planks was the durability. It’s not a hardwood so it would scratch easier than an oak flooring would.

Now with my new wabi-sabi perspective, I’m actually looking forward to the scratches and dents.

The blemishes will only add to the floor’s beauty. If there’s a scratch that is really ugly, I can add something creative to give it beauty.

Perfectly imperfect.

The Shopping List

Tools List

Here’s a list of the tools we used on this 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

 

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

The Plywood Plank Flooring Thickness

The plywood plank flooring thickness we used is 1/2″ thick. If our floors weren’t so uneven we could have used 3/4″, but the flexibility that a 1/2″ plywood has was perfect to conform to our uneven sub-floor’s contours. 

I think an added benefit to the 1/2″ plywood is that the spaces in between the planks doesn’t hold dirt as easily.

It may sound like that’s a bit of a stretch but I think if it was 3/4″ plywood, the extra 1/4″ of plywood thickness may make it harder for a vacuum to suck out things that get stuck in the spaces.

We weren’t sure how the spaces were going to fair with dust and things falling in them but so far so good – nothing a good vacuuming can’t fix. 🙂

Other than things possibly getting stuck in the spaces between the planks, I don’t see any reason you can’t use 3/4″ thick plywood for your plank flooring. That being said, I also don’t really see a benefit to using it over 1/2″ plywood.

The Plywood Plank Width

We wanted the farmhouse or country kind of look, so a wide plank is what we went with.

We also wanted to reduce the amount of wasted plywood, so the width we came up with was 5 7/8″ for each board. That gives us 8 planks per sheet and a tiny strip leftover at the end.

We’ve seen other plywood floors where they went for 8 inch or even 12 inch boards. We didn’t want to make them that wide because we felt it made it obvious that it was a plywood floor.

And a wide board would have shown the dreaded plywood zebra pattern that I don’t care for (more on the plywood zebra pattern later).

The Type Of Plywood We Used

There were a couple of questions in the comments about the type of plywood that was used for the plywood planks.

The plywood is regular 3-ply, cheapy weepy, plain Jane, rough finished 1/2″ pine plywood.

The exact name from Lowes is:

Plytanium 15/32″ CAT PS1-09 Square Structural Plywood Pine

Basically, the cheapest plywood we could get.

Since we wanted a rustic look the knots and imperfections weren’t a problem. 

Some Before Pics

Here are some before pics of the space with the original floor.

We loved the color of the original floors, but the flooring never really went with the style of the house. It was a 3/8″ floating floor and the wood strips were fairly thin. Because it was floating and a pretty thin floor, it always sounded a bit hollow when you walked on it.

The real problem with the old flooring was buckling in some spots, probably because of the way it was installed.

That buckling was one of the reasons we felt the wide plank flooring made of plywood would be perfect for this space.

The wide plank flooring has spacing around each board, that spacing would prevent the new floor from buckling.

 

How Much Plywood Do You Need

The measurements don’t need to be super precise. Rounding up the measurements and adding an extra plywood sheet to the total should give you enough wiggle room.

For our space, I treated it like a big rectangle. The length was 287″ (rounded up to 24′) and the width was 140″ (rounded up to 12′).

24 x 12 is 288 sq feet.

Each sheet of plywood is 4′ x 8′ so that gives you 32 square feet per sheet.

When I divided the total sq feet (288) by the sq feet per sheet (32) it told me I needed 9 sheets of plywood.

Then I added an extra sheet as a buffer.

The Final Numbers

We bought 10 sheets of 1/2″ plywood for our project and once completed, we had about 1 sheet left over.

Prepping the Subfloor

Total Time: 2 people about 2 hours

The original floor was a 3/8″ hardwood floor that was installed with   a   lot   of   staples…. like a lot of staples.

At first, it felt like the staple removal was taking FOREVER.

Once we got into a rhythm though it really only took a couple of hours for us to get just about all of them out.

Subfloor Painting

Total Time: 1 person about an hour The subfloor we had was unpainted plywood. If we installed the wide plank plywood flooring without first painting the lighter colored subfloor, it would have shown through the spaces in between the planks. To prevent that from happening, we painted the subfloor a very dark brown color, using paint that we already had. Any dark paint color would do the job – just stick to a paint that is an eggshell or satin. You don’t want a shiny subfloor showing through the spaces between the boards.

Cutting The Plywood Into Planks

Total Time: With the right blade this would take less than 2 hours for 10 sheets

I keep calling them planks or boards but basically, this step is where I took the sheets of plywood and cut them into long strips.

A lot of the Pinterest posts I came across said they had a person from Lowes or Home Depot cut the sheets for them.

It’s definitely an option. I’ve used their cutting services in the past when the cuts didn’t need to be very precise.

In this case, I wanted more precise cuts, so I opted to do it myself.

It takes A LOT longer but I thought having consistently sized plywood planks was worth the extra time.

That way, I was sure each piece was going to be about the same width.

To make cutting the pieces MUCH easier and to keep them the same width I made a jig.

They say hind site is 20/20, well looking back on it I would still cut the plywood strips for flooring myself.

I recently used the cutting services for another project where I didn’t care about the width they cut it an man o man, I don’t think there were two cuts that were the same width.

 

The Best Saw Blade To Use

We had 10 sheets of plywood to cut into wide plywood planks. I figured that a plywood blade would be the best. I thought anything else would leave a really rough edge on the wood.

Well, I was very, very wrong.

Do Not Use A Plywood Blade – Use a Cross Cut Blade instead

The plywood blade didn’t last very long and took a lot of effort to go through the plywood. It started smoking and having a lot more difficulty cutting barely halfway into the second sheet of plywood.

I ended up having to go out and buy another blade. This time I tried a cross cut blade, OMG what a difference.

The cross cut blade went through the plywood like butter and left an even better cut than the plywood blade did. I was able to do the rest of the plywood using just that one cross cut blade. 

If you want to get the same cross cut blade I used, just click the picture below.

The Jig

A jig is fancy talk for a template. It really made a tedious and time-consuming task super easy.

It was basically a 1/2″ piece of scrap plywood I had with a scrap piece of 1 x 4 screwed to it.

The space between the saw blade and the piece of 1 x 4 was 5 7/8″, the thickness we wanted our plywood flooring planks to be.

To make the jig I put the blade of the saw all the way up, secured the saw to the plywood with screws all around the saw, wedging it in place.

Then I slowly lowered the saw into the plywood and measured 5 7/8″ from the inside of the plunge cut and that’s where I screwed in the 1 x 4.

For more info on the jig and some extra tips on cutting the planks check out this post, 3 Time Saving Tips For DIY Plank Plywood Floors.

Tip:  If you’re cutting your own boards you need to make a jig. When making your jig, extend the 1 x 4 way in front and way behind the saw, like it is in the pictures.

That lets you line up the saw way before the blade comes in contact with the plywood. It also gives more stability, ending up with a straighter cut.

Sanding Each Plank

Total Time: 2 people about a day and a half

This part took a while, but it’s important to put the time into it.

We sanded the face of the plywood to remove any splinters and the text that’s sometimes stamped on the plywood.

We also used the sander to round the edges all around the face of each plank.

The rounded edge gives it a really nice finished look and helps in cases like ours, where the floors aren’t very level.

Rounded edges give a soft transition between two planks when they don’t quite line up.

This is also where you choose which side of the plywood will be the face, the pretty side or the ugly side.

When we were choosing sides, I’d say we chose the ugly side 80% of the time.

It went against what I would normally do, but now I kinda wish I went with the ugly side more.

We used a belt sander to do most of the sanding. You could use a palm sander if you’re not doing too much flooring but in our case, the belt sander was much faster.

The sandpaper we used was 120 grit, it was perfect for the belt sander.

During this part of the project, you’ll have your doubts about using the gnarly part of the plywood.

BUT TRUST ME – once you put the stain on the plywood you will be blown away at how good it looks.

In the end, the most beautiful planks were the ones with imperfections.

Tip:

If a plank has a knot or crack in it, don’t put it to the side or use it in an area you can’t see.

Instead, make it more noticeable. Dig into the knot or crack with the sander to emphasis the crack or knot more. It’ll help remove splinters that are around the knot or crack and also add character.

Distressing The Plywood Plank Flooring

Total Time: We did this at the same time as sanding so it’s included in the day and a half spent sanding

This is the distressing part of the distressed plywood floors.

There were three weapons of choice for applying the plywood’s character (a.k.a. distressing), a hammer, a big pair of pliers and a propane torch.

Out of the three I used the pliers the most and the hammer the least.

Using pliers, I’d repeatedly hit the face of the plywood with the back corner of the pliers.

With the hammer, I used the side of the hammer, and the claw to make indentations in the plywood.

If you look at the floor right above the hammer in the picture you’ll see the indentations the back of the pliers left.

I also used a utility knife to open up any cracks in the wood, to make them more pronounced.

I did it by putting the knife at an angle and cutting along the crack, opening up the crack, similar to what is done to cracks in concrete when you want to fill a crack.

The distressing (a.k.a character building) is a key step for distressed rustic plywood floors.

The where and tear makes the planks look authentic, the more distressing the better.

Adding Even More Character – Burning The Plywood Boards

The propane torch was by far my favorite character builder – and it wasn’t because it spoke to my inner pyro…. well maybe a little because of my inner pyro lol.

Burning the plywood gives an instant amazing aged look.

This is another part of the process where I hesitated a lot.

But once the stain goes on, the plywood planks instantly transform into a beautifully aged floorboard!

Take a look at the before and after picture of the burned plywood plank.

When burning the wood there are definitely thoughts of Oh My God! This is too much!

But, as soon as the stain goes on, it blends the darkness of the burn the the rest of the plywood colors beautifully.

Whenever we came across a plank that looked a little boring, we burned some character into it to liven things up. 🙂

Take a look at the arrows in the picture, each one of those dark marks is the work of the propane torch.

 

Tip: When burning the plywood, the lighter parts of the wood burn much easier than the darker parts. 

Since I was avoiding that plywood zebra pattern, I didn’t burn the wood where there was a heavy pattern.

Burning that area would only emphasize the pattern – and I didn’t want that.

If the part of the wood was either only dark or only light then it was eligible for burning.

Here’s a video of how we burned the rustic wide plank plywood flooring.

We Chose Gel Stain, This is Why

The process started with trying out a bunch of different stains on scrap pieces of plywood first, and this was by far our favorite!

We went with a gel stain instead of a regular stain because it does a really good job of covering up that plywood zebra pattern that we didn’t want.

It’s totally a personal preference, but I don’t like the pattern you get from regular stain on plywood floors.

Take a look at this picture I copied from Pinterest, for an example of what I’m talking about.

Regular stain is more liquid and gets absorbed by the plywood at different rates. Softer parts of the wood absorb the stain faster than the denser parts of the wood.

A workaround would also be to use a wood conditioner before applying regular stain.

Instead, we used the gel stain.

Because we used the gel, we were able to skip the wood conditioner.

Plus, the gel stain added a nice wood grain pattern on the surface of the board, making it look less like plywood….BONUS!

The Gel Stain We Chose

The gel stain we used had a dark color and created a lighter stain on the wood. The result was a cherry colored wood with a dark grain pattern on top, exactly what we were looking for.

The thicker you applied the stain the darker the board would be.

Also, the longer you waited before brushing the excess stain off the darker the plank will be.

If a plank had a heavy zebra pattern on it, we put the stain on thick and waited a bit more before dry brushing it.

That did a pretty good job of minimizing the zebra pattern.

The brush we used for the stain was a cheap wide (about 4″) real bristle brush.

The stain has a strong polyurethane smell to it, so we did the staining out on the deck and also let the boards dry out there.

If you’re going to do the same, make sure to first check the weather forecast!

We used about 7 quarts of stain to do our project.

Staining Plywood Floors

Total Time: 2 people about a day

When we stained the plywood floors, we did one coat of stain using the dry brush technique.

Basically, first we applied the stain with the wet brush, then used a dry brush to brush off the excess stain.

With every pass of the dry brush, we would wipe off the dry brush on a paper towel to remove the majority of the stain from it.

We chose the dry brush method because it leaves a nice dark wood pattern.

When applying the stain and dry brushing, we were able to play with the texture that the stain leaves on the plywood.

Mixing it up and using wavy brush strokes to simulate a grain or brushing around a knot in the wood added uniqueness to each board.

Remember, the longer the stain is left on and the longer it dries before using the dry brush, the darker the board will be.

We typically applied the stain and waited a couple of minutes before using the dry brush.

If we came across a board with lot of that zebra pattern on it we applied a thicker coat and let it sit a little longer.

The thicker coat and longer wait time did a better job of masking the zebra pattern.

Once the stain was applied we waited 24 hours before applying the polyurathane.

Applying The Finish

Total Time: 2 people about a day and a half

For the finish we used a clear satin, water based, oil-modified polyurethane.

This product was perfect for our project because it didn’t change the color of the stain, dried quickly and best of all – it’s oderless!

If you’ve ever done any sort of polyurethane project. you know that the smell from polyurathane is no joke… and it lingers for days and days. This has no smell at all!

We went with a satin finish because we wanted an aged look and a glossy floor would be the opposite of that.

Three thin coats of poly were applied on all the boards, including the sides of the boards. Between each coat, we waited about 2 hours before applying the next coat.

We then waited 24 hours after the last coat before installing the boards.

We didn’t sand between the first and second coats but did do a light hand sanding with 120 grit sandpaper before applying the final coat.

The brush we used for the poly was a cheap wide (about 6″) synthetic brush.

We used 2 gallons of polyurethane for our project.

Tip: When applying any polyurethane, bubbles are something you want to avoid.

That’s because the bubbles don’t pop. Instead,  they dry into poly… and that’s not a good look. lol

To prevent bubbles, mix the poly using a mixing stick using smooth circular motions.

No shaking the can here!

Update: When we originally did the dining room floor we did a light sanding before the final coat of poly.

Recently we did the living room floor and for that flooring, we skipped the sanding before the poly.

We figured not sanding would give the planks a bit more texture and save us a boatload of time.

It worked out really well! From now on, we won’t be sanding before the final poly coat.

It’s All About That Space

The spaces between each plank were perfect for the style we were looking for.

The spacing would give it more of that farmhouse feel and prevent the buckling that the previous floor suffered from.

A few of the posts on Pinterest mentioned using quarters as spacers, so that’s what we used.

Our wide plank plywood flooring has small variations in the spacing, mostly because of the uneven floors – but that’s ok – wabi-sabi. 😉

Where To Start Laying The Plywood Planks

I used a tip I came across on one of the Pinterest posts, starting on the side of the room where the floor is the most visible.

For our space the most visible part of the floor was by the front door so that’s where we started.

When we reached the opposite end of the space we ended up with the last row of planks needing to be ripped in half.

Make Sure To Space Out The Seams

Each plank was 8 feet long and the room was a little over 12 feet wide, so there weren’t too many seams to work with.

The rule of thumb is to not have two consecutive rows with seems less than a foot apart from each other.

Cutting The Plywood Boards To Length

I used a miter saw to cut the boards to length. Pretty straight forward. One tip is to make sure the blade reaches full speed before you start cutting into the plywood. That’ll give you a clean, smooth cut.

Tip:  Every once and a while making a cut would create a thin line of bare wood at the very edge of the cut. When that happened I used a dark colored sharpie to color that bare wood and that blended it right in.

I used a black sharpie but a brown sharpie would work just as well.

I actually used the sharpie a lot with the length-wise cuts.

Securing The Rustic Wide Plank Plywood Flooring In Place

Total Time: 1 person a solid day
On Pinterest, I found different methods of securing the planks. Some suggested glue or liquid nails, others said nails, and a few did both.
The glue or liquid nails sounded too permanent to me. If I ever want to change the flooring in the future, nailing it down would be the best approach.
I opted for face-nailing the planks using a nail gun. I bought a battery-powered Bostitch nail gun, it was perfect for the job.
This nail gun has a rapid-fire feature. If you press and hold the trigger it shoots nails in rapid succession – like it’s air-powered cousin.
That feature makes quick work of installing these floors.
The nails I used were 16 gauge 1 1/2″ straight nails.
I put a nail in about every 6 – 12″ all the way around the board.
The nail heads are super tiny and the nailgun did a good job of countersinking them into the planks so they are barely noticeable.
We used about 4 packs of nails for the project

Tip: If you end up buying the same nail gun I’d recommend also buying an extra battery. It already comes with one battery, buying the extra battery will help keep your project moving along.

 

One More Note

The plywood flooring we installed is 1/2″ thick and the previous flooring was 3/8″ thick.

The 1/8″ difference meant any spaces where the previous flooring used to fit – the new flooring no longer did.

That difference meant a lot of undercutting. Not only the door moldings but all the furring strips that cover the seams of the oak boards on the walls.

I could have done it with a dovetail saw, but since I had quite a few cuts to do, I bought an oscillating tool. It worked perfectly!

The tool comes with a bunch of different attachments. I haven’t used it for anything else yet but I can think of a few different uses for it in the future.

All Done – That’s It!

So, all told, it took roughly a week to do the plywood plank floors – from complete start to complete finish. Including the old floor removal, subfloor painted, 10 sheets of plywood cut into strips, sanded, distressed, stained, polyied and installed.

This was a good sized project with a lot of effort put into it, but it was well worth it. We now have a completely unique floor that fits perfectly with the house, and looks fantastic!!

In the fall, we’re going to install the same rustic wide plank plywood flooring in the living room, and I’m really looking forward to it.

We’re also going to do a unique transition between the living room and dining room floors… can’t wait.

 

Update: Well, we redid the living floors recently and we also installed the wood slice accent flooring. Everything turned out perfect!

We wrote about those experiences also, check out those posts here:

Wood Slice Accent Flooring

Farmhouse Wide Plank Flooring



Did you like this post? Want more?

 

Get all of our best DIY tips directly in your inbox!

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Some Pictures

Here’s some more pics of the work in progress and the finished plywood plank flooring.

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

Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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

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. 🙂

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. :)

View Comments

  • Well finally here is the best plywood plank flooring tutorial I have found. Thank you so much for sharing this. I to have been bothered by the zebra effect that you get when staining plywood. And you've given me the solution, I'd almost given up on plywood flooring. Fingers crossed I'm off to Home Depot. Thanks again

    • Hi Akua! Thanks for the feedback, glad the post helped. Best of luck with your plywood project! Feel free to reach out if you have a question along the way. :)

  • The main question we have is about how you keep dirt out of the spaces between the boards. Did you put a finish coat of poly on the entire floor after it was done? How do you keep it clean?

    • Hi David!

      That's a great question! The 3 coats of poly were applied to each board individually, before putting them down.

      We figured it was more important to have a good coating of poly on the sides of each board, to make them a bit more resistant to moisture (especially in the kitchen).

      The dining room/kitchen floor is about 9 months old, and so far everything has cleaned up very nicely.

      We were a little worried about having little bits of food falling in the cracks in the kitchen, but vacuuming seems to pick up everything that's in the cracks pretty easily.

      Maybe it's because the floors are only 1/2" thick? It's possible a thicker flooring (like 3/4" flooring) would make it harder for the vacuum to get debris out of the cracks.

      Hope that helps!

    • Hi Brook,

      I added a blurb to the article about the type of plywood since that was unclear before.

      Thanks for the feedback!

  • Thanks for your time and effort putting this together. Your systematic, step by step explanation of the process is a real confidence booster and the result is beautiful. I agree that the typical plywood zebra pattern is not desirable. Am I understanding correctly that the gel stain and dry brush technique is used to CREATE a more pleasing wood grain pattern? In a sense "painting" on a wood grain look?

    • Hi Dan,

      Thank you so much for the kind words, I'm glad it's been helpful to you. :)

      That's exactly right! This stain is the same stuff that's used to create a wood pattern on surfaces like steel doors.

      The grain you see in the close-ups is, for the most part, a pattern created by the stain.

    • Hi Courtney,

      The plywood is regular 15/32 in. (1/2″) 3-Ply RTD Sheathing plywood. You’re the second person to ask what the type of plywood it is so I’ll make sure to add that info to the article.

      Thanks for your comment!

  • Hey Steve, this is great. Loved your ideas! My question is about moisture - with the cracks between the planks and the sub floor underneath, could you put a top coat of sealer to fill the cracks or possibly seal the sub floor? Any ideas? We have kids and are considering doing this in our main living area which includes the dining room. I am pretty confident it will subject to moisture sometimes. Thanks!

    • Hi Jeremiah,

      Thank you so much!!!

      Hmmm, our plywood flooring is on the second floor so we didn’t have to worry about moisture coming from underneath.

      If the moisture your concerned about is coming from above – as in kids will be dropping water on top of the flooring, that shouldn’t be a problem.

      By finishing each board individually, you’ll be able to apply “poly” all around the plank, making it more resilient to water being dropped on it. That’s why we chose to finish each plank individually, instead of finishing the whole floor at once.

      We did add a couple of coats of dark paint on the subfloor to give it a layer of protection from moisture from above.

      If you’re really concerned about the subfloor getting moisture (which sounds more and more like what you’re concerned about as I go through the process of answering your question) then you can definitely apply a sealer to the subfloor before installing the plywood flooring.

      As an alternative, you can apply a coat of the “poly” on the subfloor. If that’s the path I was taking, I’d paint the subfloor a dark color first, then apply the “poly”. I’d use a flat finish poly on the subfloor, that way the cracks won’t be shiny.

      Oh one more thing, you mentioned filling the cracks with sealer. I’d avoid doing that. We face-nailed the planks to the subfloor and kept spacing between each plank to allow for expansion. If the cracks were filled, the plywood wouldn’t have the space to expand and that may lead to problems.

      Hope that helps!

      Best of luck!

  • A great, step-by-step , comprehensive explanation of how to go from start to finish with the plywood floors! Excited to try. Thank you for taking the time to share.

    Grateful,
    Sallye

  • Hi great article. Thank you. I would like to use this technique of flooring in an outdoor patio. It is screened in but occasionally rain is blown in and the floor becomes wet. Do you think I could put a sealer on top? Or do you have advice for outdoor use of plywood?

    • Hi Patz,

      Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Wow that's a tough one. The obvious question is how much rain gets blown in? If the existing flooring (or subflooring) is plywood and is holding up, then I can see this working well.

      In the kitchen, the flooring does get its fair share of "accidents" and it has held up perfectly... but my occasional accidents are no measure to what mama nature can throw at the floors.

      If I were thinking of doing this project in an area that is partially exposed to the elements, I'd probably lean toward using pressure-treated plywood. Its pricier but it would be worth the additional cost.

      It would be horrible to finish a project like this and love the way your floors look, only to have the floor ruined by unusually heavy rain.

      Yeah, my suggestion would be to use pressure-treated plywood. The stain will cover up the yellow tint of pressure-treated plywood, so it would basically look the same and you wouldn't have to worry about the rain.

      I hope that helps.

      Steve

  • This is absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for putting together such a detailed tutorial. This is exactly what we're looking for in our new home. We haven't moved in yet, but I will be taking the next few weeks to make all of the plywood boards for when we do move in! Did you finish all the sides of the plywood planks including the underside? And then when you made cuts to length and had unfinished wood, did you do anything to finish it before installing?

    • Hi Eric! Thank you so much, and congrats on the new home!

      At the start of our project the plan was to finish the boards on every side. But once we started we realized that was a lot of extra work and changed our minds.

      If the floor was going in an area that had a lot of moisture then I would have definitely added a coat of the polycrylic to the underside. Since this was on a second floor there would be less chance of moisture entering the wood from underneath.

      With the cuts to length, that cut goes toward the wall, so we didn’t need to add any finish to it. Since the cuts from the compound miter saw were so clean (no splintering) none of the bare wood was visible.

      Oh, there is something I never mentioned in the post, for cuts that went length-wise, like around kitchen cabinets, the cuts were not nearly as clean. With those cuts I used a dark-colored sharpy (brown or black) to color in the cut so that it wouldn’t show.

      I used the sharpie to color in any part of the wood that we had somehow missed when applying the stain. There weren’t many but there were more than one spot that needed some coloring. Mostly around the holes and once in a while there was an edge that didn’t quite get enough stain. The sharpie covered it up perfectly.

      I hope that answers your questions. Best of luck with your project!!

      Steve

1 2 3 4

Recent Posts

A Simple Wainscoting Calculator

There are already wainscoting calculators out there but they're too complicated. This wainscoting calculator uses…

2 months ago

How to Paint Laminate Cabinets without Sanding

In this post we’ll go over how to paint laminate cabinets. We did this project…

9 months ago

Converting A Box Spring into a Platform Bed

Let me first say that converting a box spring into a platform bed is not…

1 year ago

DIY Wainscoting – Part 2 – Cutting The Frames

The cutting is one of the two areas where you can save TONS of time……

3 years ago

DIY Wainscoting – Part 1 – Design And Layout

In this post, I’ll go over what we did and why we did it. No…

3 years ago

Homemade Dog Flea Shampoo

This is Our Favorite Homemade Dog Flea Shampoo. It worked better than we could have…

4 years ago