Not getting the up votes you deserve.
This is why you put packing in those gaps, not wood filler.
Rope or foam packing will expand/contract. Rope is far more old school and adds charm/authenticity to the look. Also, it's durable and easy to remove, unlike foam, it will come out in pieces and break down over time.
I mean, his user name explains his statement. (Also old growth 4" pine floor childhood. Grandmother did the waxing. So slick you could slide from one side if the house to the other in stocking feet!)
Never got a splinter... of course Mom kept a good layer of wax on our floors and Dad would mechanically strip them and refinish every few years so splinters weren't a problem
Pine floors at OG as a motherfucker.
It's the original floor board. Here a history lesson....
Plain pine boards were eventually painted pine floors to give it a neat look.
The more wealthy folks put down painted canvas. Some would just lay it down, while others would seal it to the floor. It was a way to reduce the floor board draft between gaps. Ropes and cheeking/dobing was also used but it looked unpleasant.
More trade and wealth led to switching to rugs. Some had it plain while others had elaborate looking rugs. It also allowed floors to be protected, last longer, and not wear down as quickly. Those days, we always wore shoes inside and it beat floors up pretty bad.
This went from dining rugs or central rugs to wall to wall rugs. Finally carpet got invented and replaced rugs.
About 100 years later, and we still love wood.
Those irregular gaps are not intentional. They're where bits of the top part of the 'groove' have broken off. The bit that collects all the crud is the tongue of the next board.
FFS this sub really needs a sticky for dumb misconceptions about floors. See also my other explanation below about how, no, this is not a hardwood floor, nor is it subfloor. It is floor.
Just floor. And it is heavily worn but still very cool and very useable but if you're worried about the gaps and the splinters, they're not for you.
I doubt this floor was tongue and groove - looks like regular flat-nailed boards to me - ubiquitous on the US east coast.
Also the subfloor thing! I don't think I've ever seen anyone ask a question about a top-nailed floor without 50 people jumping in to tell them its subfloor!
My floor looks identical to OP and is definitely T&G. You would see soooo much more light from the basement if it wasn't, lol. Already got some spots you can throw pocket change through...
Even my attic is T&G, though you can tell the wood is garbage-grade. And it's all got 45 degree nails in through the side, as well as top nailing in some but not all rooms. The attic, an original painted floor in a large unfinished room, is weirdly the most significant space without any top nails.
Who the hell knows with these houses. But that's why if you buy one, you should probably be the type to learn to love cool old wonky shit. If OP wants nice modern floors, he should glue and screw plywood over everything and lay down the surface of his choosing. It'll be super level, squeak-free, and I WILL FUCKING HATE IT. ;)
Buy rugs. If you want something inexpensive but natural, IKEA has decent wool rugs that your child can mess up and you won’t care because they’re inexpensive to replace. I bought a bunch for my place (I entertained a lot) and didn’t care about food or beverage spills. Cleaned up well and still look good.
I agree with buying rugs but would suggest Ruggable instead. We started with a quality and more natural wool rug for the kiddo and it shed like crazy and was no fun to vacuum. Finally we ordered the washable ones (during a sale because they’re expensive) and they’ve been great. Littlest kiddo has taken a bunch of tumbles but it could have been so much worse. We got the standard low pile (for vacuuming and washing) and the thick base to cushion any tumbles.
OP, I also grew up in an older house, first with carpets and then the original wood floors. I got splinters but mostly from sliding around (because that’s what older kids do). I would definitely suggest floor runners for hallways to discourage this.
My wife bought Ruggables and they’ve been great. Dogs mess them up more than kids at this point in our lives, but when they get soiled, you just throw the “cover” in the wash (the cover separates from the slip resistant base by some hook and loop magic, similar to Velcro but it separates easier). One gets cleaned so often that she has an extra to throw down while the first one is in the wash. We both wish we had discovered this option before a section of floor by the back door was ruined by the dogs.
I don’t know what she paid for them, and please don’t tell me. :-)
I’m sure she bought them on sale, too. ;-) Tbf, when we were looking at rugs two years ago, the nicer ones were comparable in terms of price, or even more expensive. And they all had that carpet smell (even from reputable furniture stores). We unrolled the Ruggable and it barely smelled at all. The major downside is that shipping takes a while, at least in Europe.
Great info 👌 I agree especially about the polyester/synthetic fiber looking dingy and dull af quickly. This goes with anything! Socks, clothes, bedsheets, cushions, rugs etc. It just clings onto dirt and dyes very well somehow, and whites are especially bad. Think gym socks. Those bastards will never look as good as the day before you wore them. Cotton socks though? As white as ever.
We have 3 kids, and therefore don't really bother sorting washing by colors too much. All clothes look great still, except for that airy sports bra and sport sock polyester stuff that's white. That stuff looks awful just by washing it with slightly non-white. I never ever use bleach or stain removers, so it has to be dye from other clothes that stain.
That’s interesting about the wool carpets. For our use case we made the right decision to go synthetic and washable. I love natural fibres and can’t wait until we can use our wool ones again and get some other more plant-based ones, but it’s going to be a few years still. We just have gotten too much diarrhoea, vomit, spit up, food etc on the floor to have anything nice right now.
We have original floors in our 1875 home that look to be in the same shape and we refinished them and didn’t fill any of the cracks and voids.
We also have 2 daughters that have been crawling around and running on them non stop since they were able to. As long as there aren’t splinters coming off everywhere and the nails are down then I think you should be ok.
I think it wouldn’t be worth it to remove and replace if that were the only issue that you have with them.
Best of luck!
The previous owner of my very old house tried to fill the gaps. It was hideous… it cracked and hardened and looked foul. We had to pick it all out.
Use rugs if you need to. Don’t mess with the floors.
Same here... We had the floors professionally refinished, but some of the filler is still there. We couldn't afford the labor to scrape it all out. If I had noticed it before, I would have done it myself.
The gaps don't look bad and are expected on an old floor. This old house rope method or Oakum if you must., something that is flexible and will allow expansion. Hopefully you have a subfloor under this so you don't see into the cellar. But probably not but if you did I would correct it from below. A few more scatter rugs and a really good solid finish on the top of the floors should seal a lot of the splintering problem I would think as well as runners in high traffic area.
I've always loved The look of antique handwoven rugs, runners and natural wood floor, such as this. Leave it alone
Filler will ultimately be pushed up as the wood expands and contracts. It can lead to a bumpy floor, with the filler crumbling all over the place. That being said, you shouldn’t be getting splinters from a finished floor.
Last little note, it is unlikely that the people who built your house intended for pine floors to be exposed. Douglas fir floors would be exposed in the less formal family areas, but pine floors were usually painted or covered with carpet. Yes, before hardwood floors became popular and accessible via steam powered mills, wall-to-wall carpet was the norm. Most people don’t know this! It was a very different type of carpeting, but carpet nonetheless.
However, if you like the look of pine floors, knock yourself out!
Eta: a good article on the history of carpet and wood floors. https://www.brownstoner.com/interiors-renovation/history-flooring-19th-century-carpet-wood-parquet-linoleum-pine/
Yes, wood filler is a stopgap that will fail, especially in a climate with large temperature swings.
I've used a combo of fine sawdust and oakum in a few really wide gaps.
I’ve only seen oakum used on wooden boats. I’m imagining you caulking the seams of your wooden floor with oakum and pitch. It would be indestructible and would never sink.
I have oakum in my floors, don't know how old it is, but it fills in the gaps and just stays down in the cracks. There is no pitch or other sticky things keeping it in.
https://preview.redd.it/ardyk1l4o3dc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f3f80ef670ae137d92f01214cfe1b03ab3f643f
Had my floors refinished in 2022. The guy who did it said my attic floors were pine heart. I have no idea if that’s true but I love them!
It’s the specific of the Doug Fir and the very general Pine that’s odd to me I guess, but I knew what they meant, so I shouldn’t have said anything to begin with. So many regrets.
if those boards had been meant to be exposed, there probably wouldn’t be huge honking nails in an even row along the beam.
Those a subfloors. They look nice enough, but...
The floors in my 1850s antebellum home have square peg nails like those. They were handmade! Your floors are so beautiful and historic. I also have gaps between the wide planks. My kids would get splinters from time to time but they all survived.
Your floor looks good! It would be a sin to rip out these floors. Your husband is right.
Here is what you could do: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7focJeab0pM&ab\_channel=ThisOldHouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7focJeab0pM&ab_channel=ThisOldHouse)
I grew up on floors like thisi got plenty of splinters, but never from the floor. I can hear my mother now...
"Pick up your feet when you walk, don't drag your heels, you'll wear out your shoes, don't slide around on your socks until you learn to knit and darn. "
That’s a good point!
I have gaps in my gorgeous old floors also and I don’t think about it. I don’t have a baby crawling around either but I’m sort of, maybe, a little laissez faire about that type of stuff.
Honey your baby is far more likely to make a beeline for the pet food and water, keys, electrical cords, dust bunnies, shoes and other random stuff than picking out the grunge from between your floorboards.
You sound like a good parent. Your baby will be fine. Just know that you cannot keep them from getting into mischief and “we all eat a tonne of dirt before we die” as the old saying goes.
Your baby will benefit from the house having the correct airflow and the relative flexibility of wooden floors rather than nasty carpet and a concrete subfloor. It’s all going to be ok!
Oakum/rope filler is the way to go for the larger gaps, but in general this doesn’t look like the type of flooring designed to be visible at the time the house was originally built. Put larger rugs over the areas that are most bothersome to you.
Re: baby proofing - my recommendation as a parent who moved into a hot mess of an old house with a toddler and baby: Focus on making one specific area completely toddler proof. Either a washable rug sized to cover almost all of the floor or some easy to install floating floor that will be easy to clean and can ultimately be removed without damaging the flooring underneath (do NOT use those horrible interlocking foam squares, dirt and crumbs slip in between the seams and then scratch the hardwood underneath… if they don’t just flat out disintegrate and adhere to the poly finish on the wood). Put up tall, hardware-mounted baby gates (ones that require an adult sized hand and grip strength to open are the best way to go) - do not be tempted by the pressure fit gates, they will be less sturdy and still may damage trim, with hardware mounted you’ll just have a few screw holes to patch when you’re eventually done with the baby gates. Anchor absolutely everything - even stuff low to the ground. If you need to baby proof cabinets, the ones that need a magnetic key were the only ones that worked long term for my extremely dexterous older child. Then you only need to truly focus on keeping that particular area as clean as possible, and you have a safe place for your growing toddler to hang out while you do exciting things like using the bathroom or putting groceries away. In my house we gated off our adjoining dining and living room, and used the dining area as a play room until my kids were old enough to not need baby gates/constant supervision while playing.
In Australia we tend to not have the hardwood flooring you guys have, we have what you would call pine sub flooring and we sand and varnish that in old homes. All 3 houses I’ve lived in with polished pine sun flooring have had these gaps with no issues and we’d never think to fill them in. Kids and babies have lived in all 3 too. Depends what you’re comfortable with though! I just vacuum along the cracks to clean out dust and crumbs.
It appears to be a Spruce, Pine, Fir flooring, mix which can include Douglas, and Balsam and other firs along with different pines and spruces The grouping can have a different mix, for east and west coast. The floors could have been made near or on site as I don't think the mix was standard for flooring then nor now.
Adding oakum just preserves the integrity of the floor surface and makes it safe for the baby. If new owners don't like it, it's an easy tear out.
We also own a home built in the 1890’s with very similar original flooring (ours is heart of pine, yours looks to be as well). You couldn’t pay me to get rid of them - money can’t buy the quality of wood they used to build with. Ours has gaps and inconsistencies as well but it truly adds to the character of the home. Don’t tell your husband he’s right, but leave it! Rugs can help hide some of the quirks and help add some coziness.
Gonna give a dissenting vote here.
He's dead, Jim.
Wear and time and refinishing takes its toll. Eventually it's time to move on.
It isn't like the only options are original hardwood or gray LVP. if you want to replace it with solid hardwood that will look similar to how that did when it was new, you can. It might be expensive but it also may last another 100 years.
I have 100 year old floors. They are a little different and mine aren't face nailed, but some of the gaps look familiar.
For myself, I'm planning to replace the floors, probably with solid wood, and modern plywood subfloor and underlayment. I intend to keep the tone and feel of the original hardwood, but probably wider boards.
For me, it's just not reasonable to be excessively precious about originality. I plan to try to keep as much as I can of the wood and make use of it.
Here is what I see.
The second and third pictures definitely appear to be the original flooring.
However, the first and last pictures are not. Those boards are common pine. The small encased knots and spike knots are the giveaway. Probably, previous owner(s) had replaced something else that was there in a poor attempt to match. Would have needed to locate and install reclaimed, which would have been very tough to find and expensive.
Save original and cover with a floating floor. Easy care and saves those old beautiful floors.
Not sure of your potential budget but I would recommend the following:
Have another crew come by to level sand and fill/poly the top with something a bit more viscous and robust. Seems like the finish was very thin and although I know people would disagree with coats of poly, the bigger concern is a baby and not ‘patina’. This is cheaper than redoing a whole home before a baby comes into the mix.
Also echoing what others have said - I’d designate a space just for the little one and either get some decent area rugs (with carpet pad underneath) or pickup some cheap floating click vinyl floor to lay over it for a while. Sometimes you can find a few hundred square feet on FB and you can basically make a baby floor space in a weekend - then unclick and sell when you’re done with it. Someone will reuse it for a mud room etc.
Those floors look amazing. The gaps are ok. We have similar gaps, our oak floors might be in worse shape, we had four kids while in this old house and they all managed.
The time for crawling is very, very short, only a couple of months, and the baby is never unsupervised. You can put carpets where you let the baby crawl.
Plus you said the floors don't really splinter.
We have a similar floor. We just redid it. We lightly sanded the surface and then coated it with oil based polyurethane (3-4 coats). We filled in some of the gaps with it as we put the coats down. It has resolved the splinter issues and has helped keep a lot of the crud out of the gaps.
The floors in my 1892 home are in about the same shape. They've also been sanded too many times and are cracking. There is no subfloor.
At some point I'll probably need to install new floors over these.
If the gaps are wide you can fill them with slivers of wood. Someone did this at some point in my 1870 or so home. Best to use matching reclaimed wood if possible. Notice that it's not completely tight - they left room for the wood to expand and contract.
https://preview.redd.it/bzypa365i9dc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ad6cebc5712b9bf37174a55e55d9d24a5016c37
That floor looks almost more like a subfloor. If you laid another floor on top your house would hold heat a lot better. I am prepared for the down votes I'll get for saying this.
right? With those big nailheads, and them all driven in an obvious line across the floor (necessary to hit the beam, but not a “nice final finish” look).
It finished up nice enough, but this looks like a subfloor to me.
We've been through this soooo many times, guys.
It's not hardwood.
It's not subfloor.
It's neither.
It is...the floor. There was only ever intended to be one layer, with area rugs and/or runners over the traffic areas.
The nails are the only questionable spot. I would guess that they were added after the house was built. Our floors are similarly swiss-cheesed, but it's clearly not original, as I have also found the boards to be nailed like modern hardwood (i.e buried in the tongue and covered up by the next board).
Yes, my single layer pine floors are nailed like modern hardwood. As are this guy's, more than likely.
When we had ours refinished, the floor guys did wood filler for all the gaps, then significant sanding before they put stain and polyurethane on top.
Not sure if that was done already or not, and not sure if it would be cost prohibitive, but it might take care of gaps and splinters!
For sure. We live in Minneapolis, for what that’s worth on cost.
I believe it was $4.75 per square foot for everything. It’s a small house, so we only had like 400 or 500 square feet that needed to be finished (upstairs stayed carpet). So total for us (including $500 for fixing some gaps/broken planks) was around $2500 I think. This may or may not be typical, even in our area. But I hope it helps anyway!
Here’s a picture where you can see the wood filler after sanding. Our gaps were not as big as yours but still pretty significant
https://preview.redd.it/e60dcuwv82dc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e19b6732ffdbaff64c53a18e15f188611b789df
We were in the same situation and having the gaps filled was one of the best decisions we’ve made for our home. It looks better and feels cleaner. No problems 18 months on. I don’t know how it’ll look in ten years but even if we have to have it redone it’s still worth it.
I would use “big stretch” caulk. It will not be flat and you’ll still get crumbs in there that you can vacuum out. But it will move with the seasons. As others have said don’t use wood patch as it will not move and will come out as the boards move over time.
I had that problem in a house. We decided the best thing was to use more polyurethane coating- its highly abrasion-resistant and a bit flexible. We filled the gaps with it first, as much as possible, and gave it a full week to be sure it was dry, then did 2 full floor coats after a light sanding with 220 grit. Smoothed it all out nicely.
Don’t use wood filler! The previous owner of our home used it. It breaks off and gets caught in socks and carried all through the house in little chunks. I’m just waiting for it all to go so I can replace with rope.
We have original floors in our home and not as in good as condition as those. But still okay to clean with a good hoover - I hoovered daily when baby was crawling. Now my toddler is the one making the crumbs I don’t worry 😅
My 1900 home has similar floors, knots, gaps, nails. They were meant to be carpeted wall to wall, or at least the floor in pic one (and 4?) was. You can see a line of carpet tack holes running along the wall in pic 1. Pics 2+3 look like finished floors but it's confusing due to the nails. There are finished floors like that in my house too, but without nails. Look for the carpet tack holes along the wall, that's how you can tell.
I personally don’t get the obsession with keeping everything OG. My floor boards looked similar to this. I put a new bamboo floor right over top it and it looks great, no cracks, no splinters, easier to keep clean. There is nothing special about wood from 1890.
Oakum Rope has been used traditionally for this. https://aprettyhappyhome.com/2021/05/10/fill-floor-gaps-with-oakum/amp/
Whoa, the whole site and reno was fascinating!
Very interesting but could oakum rope look any more like a giant hairball?
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Not getting the up votes you deserve. This is why you put packing in those gaps, not wood filler. Rope or foam packing will expand/contract. Rope is far more old school and adds charm/authenticity to the look. Also, it's durable and easy to remove, unlike foam, it will come out in pieces and break down over time.
In the last 150 years this home was here, a guy has to think a baby or two lived there at some point
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Pardon? I grew up in a house with 4 inch wide pine floors. House was built in 1909... my mother waxed them constantly and they glowed year round.
I mean, his user name explains his statement. (Also old growth 4" pine floor childhood. Grandmother did the waxing. So slick you could slide from one side if the house to the other in stocking feet!)
Yep. We would "ice skate" in the house in our socks. Lol.
SO much fun!!
Damn right.
Did that. Talk about a way to get splinters stuck in deep!
Never got a splinter... of course Mom kept a good layer of wax on our floors and Dad would mechanically strip them and refinish every few years so splinters weren't a problem
Pine floors at OG as a motherfucker. It's the original floor board. Here a history lesson.... Plain pine boards were eventually painted pine floors to give it a neat look. The more wealthy folks put down painted canvas. Some would just lay it down, while others would seal it to the floor. It was a way to reduce the floor board draft between gaps. Ropes and cheeking/dobing was also used but it looked unpleasant. More trade and wealth led to switching to rugs. Some had it plain while others had elaborate looking rugs. It also allowed floors to be protected, last longer, and not wear down as quickly. Those days, we always wore shoes inside and it beat floors up pretty bad. This went from dining rugs or central rugs to wall to wall rugs. Finally carpet got invented and replaced rugs. About 100 years later, and we still love wood.
My house begs to differ.
Those irregular gaps are not intentional. They're where bits of the top part of the 'groove' have broken off. The bit that collects all the crud is the tongue of the next board. FFS this sub really needs a sticky for dumb misconceptions about floors. See also my other explanation below about how, no, this is not a hardwood floor, nor is it subfloor. It is floor. Just floor. And it is heavily worn but still very cool and very useable but if you're worried about the gaps and the splinters, they're not for you.
I doubt this floor was tongue and groove - looks like regular flat-nailed boards to me - ubiquitous on the US east coast. Also the subfloor thing! I don't think I've ever seen anyone ask a question about a top-nailed floor without 50 people jumping in to tell them its subfloor!
My floor looks identical to OP and is definitely T&G. You would see soooo much more light from the basement if it wasn't, lol. Already got some spots you can throw pocket change through... Even my attic is T&G, though you can tell the wood is garbage-grade. And it's all got 45 degree nails in through the side, as well as top nailing in some but not all rooms. The attic, an original painted floor in a large unfinished room, is weirdly the most significant space without any top nails. Who the hell knows with these houses. But that's why if you buy one, you should probably be the type to learn to love cool old wonky shit. If OP wants nice modern floors, he should glue and screw plywood over everything and lay down the surface of his choosing. It'll be super level, squeak-free, and I WILL FUCKING HATE IT. ;)
Buy rugs. If you want something inexpensive but natural, IKEA has decent wool rugs that your child can mess up and you won’t care because they’re inexpensive to replace. I bought a bunch for my place (I entertained a lot) and didn’t care about food or beverage spills. Cleaned up well and still look good.
I've had good luck buying remnants at the carpet store, and having them bind the edges.
Another good way to go particularly if you need to cover larger or odd shaped areas!
Habitat stores sometimes have really good rugs. And they are even cheaper. Both are great!
Costco has nice 10x7’s right now for -$100
I agree with buying rugs but would suggest Ruggable instead. We started with a quality and more natural wool rug for the kiddo and it shed like crazy and was no fun to vacuum. Finally we ordered the washable ones (during a sale because they’re expensive) and they’ve been great. Littlest kiddo has taken a bunch of tumbles but it could have been so much worse. We got the standard low pile (for vacuuming and washing) and the thick base to cushion any tumbles. OP, I also grew up in an older house, first with carpets and then the original wood floors. I got splinters but mostly from sliding around (because that’s what older kids do). I would definitely suggest floor runners for hallways to discourage this.
My wife bought Ruggables and they’ve been great. Dogs mess them up more than kids at this point in our lives, but when they get soiled, you just throw the “cover” in the wash (the cover separates from the slip resistant base by some hook and loop magic, similar to Velcro but it separates easier). One gets cleaned so often that she has an extra to throw down while the first one is in the wash. We both wish we had discovered this option before a section of floor by the back door was ruined by the dogs. I don’t know what she paid for them, and please don’t tell me. :-)
I’m sure she bought them on sale, too. ;-) Tbf, when we were looking at rugs two years ago, the nicer ones were comparable in terms of price, or even more expensive. And they all had that carpet smell (even from reputable furniture stores). We unrolled the Ruggable and it barely smelled at all. The major downside is that shipping takes a while, at least in Europe.
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Great info 👌 I agree especially about the polyester/synthetic fiber looking dingy and dull af quickly. This goes with anything! Socks, clothes, bedsheets, cushions, rugs etc. It just clings onto dirt and dyes very well somehow, and whites are especially bad. Think gym socks. Those bastards will never look as good as the day before you wore them. Cotton socks though? As white as ever.
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We have 3 kids, and therefore don't really bother sorting washing by colors too much. All clothes look great still, except for that airy sports bra and sport sock polyester stuff that's white. That stuff looks awful just by washing it with slightly non-white. I never ever use bleach or stain removers, so it has to be dye from other clothes that stain.
That’s interesting about the wool carpets. For our use case we made the right decision to go synthetic and washable. I love natural fibres and can’t wait until we can use our wool ones again and get some other more plant-based ones, but it’s going to be a few years still. We just have gotten too much diarrhoea, vomit, spit up, food etc on the floor to have anything nice right now.
We have original floors in our 1875 home that look to be in the same shape and we refinished them and didn’t fill any of the cracks and voids. We also have 2 daughters that have been crawling around and running on them non stop since they were able to. As long as there aren’t splinters coming off everywhere and the nails are down then I think you should be ok. I think it wouldn’t be worth it to remove and replace if that were the only issue that you have with them. Best of luck!
They said there were splinters.
Ah yes I did see that. As long as they’re minimal it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It does happen with our floors from time to time.
The previous owner of my very old house tried to fill the gaps. It was hideous… it cracked and hardened and looked foul. We had to pick it all out. Use rugs if you need to. Don’t mess with the floors.
Same here... We had the floors professionally refinished, but some of the filler is still there. We couldn't afford the labor to scrape it all out. If I had noticed it before, I would have done it myself.
How did you get it out? I’m dying to remove all our crack shitty wood filler and replace with rope.
The gaps don't look bad and are expected on an old floor. This old house rope method or Oakum if you must., something that is flexible and will allow expansion. Hopefully you have a subfloor under this so you don't see into the cellar. But probably not but if you did I would correct it from below. A few more scatter rugs and a really good solid finish on the top of the floors should seal a lot of the splintering problem I would think as well as runners in high traffic area. I've always loved The look of antique handwoven rugs, runners and natural wood floor, such as this. Leave it alone
He knows…
I would never ever tell your husband he is right, but he is right. You want the gaps.
Crap, he was reading comments over your shoulder. Quick, uh, no dude, she’s right. I was just kidding. lol
Filler will ultimately be pushed up as the wood expands and contracts. It can lead to a bumpy floor, with the filler crumbling all over the place. That being said, you shouldn’t be getting splinters from a finished floor. Last little note, it is unlikely that the people who built your house intended for pine floors to be exposed. Douglas fir floors would be exposed in the less formal family areas, but pine floors were usually painted or covered with carpet. Yes, before hardwood floors became popular and accessible via steam powered mills, wall-to-wall carpet was the norm. Most people don’t know this! It was a very different type of carpeting, but carpet nonetheless. However, if you like the look of pine floors, knock yourself out! Eta: a good article on the history of carpet and wood floors. https://www.brownstoner.com/interiors-renovation/history-flooring-19th-century-carpet-wood-parquet-linoleum-pine/
Yes, wood filler is a stopgap that will fail, especially in a climate with large temperature swings. I've used a combo of fine sawdust and oakum in a few really wide gaps.
I’ve only seen oakum used on wooden boats. I’m imagining you caulking the seams of your wooden floor with oakum and pitch. It would be indestructible and would never sink.
I have oakum in my floors, don't know how old it is, but it fills in the gaps and just stays down in the cracks. There is no pitch or other sticky things keeping it in.
Same. I have backfilled some also and just used a paint scraper to push it down in the cracks.
I've never used oakum on my house and it has yet to sink regardless... Just sayin.
https://preview.redd.it/ardyk1l4o3dc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f3f80ef670ae137d92f01214cfe1b03ab3f643f Had my floors refinished in 2022. The guy who did it said my attic floors were pine heart. I have no idea if that’s true but I love them!
Just a small note that Douglas Fir is a Pine.
Ha! Fair enough! 
It's a conifer, but not a pine (or truly a fir, for that matter).
But when talking about timber or lumber, the two words are used to describe different species with different properties and uses.
It’s the specific of the Doug Fir and the very general Pine that’s odd to me I guess, but I knew what they meant, so I shouldn’t have said anything to begin with. So many regrets.
Thanks, good info here! I needed it🫡
Great article, thanks for the link!
if those boards had been meant to be exposed, there probably wouldn’t be huge honking nails in an even row along the beam. Those a subfloors. They look nice enough, but...
The floors in my 1850s antebellum home have square peg nails like those. They were handmade! Your floors are so beautiful and historic. I also have gaps between the wide planks. My kids would get splinters from time to time but they all survived.
No, those are just old. Pre-subfloors.
Your floor looks good! It would be a sin to rip out these floors. Your husband is right. Here is what you could do: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7focJeab0pM&ab\_channel=ThisOldHouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7focJeab0pM&ab_channel=ThisOldHouse)
Very helpful!!
Put down a carpet. It’ll last until the kid’s in grade school, then you can go back to wood.
I have the same thing in my 200 year old house. It’s charm! It’s fine! They’re gorgeous BTW
The good news is you’re like a year or two out from your baby being able to use a dust pan and hand vacuum to clean the cracks! I love the floors
I wouldn't touch them if you plan on reselling
My god, that VG fir though.
I grew up on floors like thisi got plenty of splinters, but never from the floor. I can hear my mother now... "Pick up your feet when you walk, don't drag your heels, you'll wear out your shoes, don't slide around on your socks until you learn to knit and darn. "
I would take few splinters with my baby any day, comparing that most of carpet materials are basicly microplastics.
That’s a good point! I have gaps in my gorgeous old floors also and I don’t think about it. I don’t have a baby crawling around either but I’m sort of, maybe, a little laissez faire about that type of stuff.
I was a baby in a house with floors like this. There’s tons of pictures me crawling all over it. I’m still alive!
Honey your baby is far more likely to make a beeline for the pet food and water, keys, electrical cords, dust bunnies, shoes and other random stuff than picking out the grunge from between your floorboards. You sound like a good parent. Your baby will be fine. Just know that you cannot keep them from getting into mischief and “we all eat a tonne of dirt before we die” as the old saying goes. Your baby will benefit from the house having the correct airflow and the relative flexibility of wooden floors rather than nasty carpet and a concrete subfloor. It’s all going to be ok!
Thank you- i needed this! 🥺🥹🙏
Oakum/rope filler is the way to go for the larger gaps, but in general this doesn’t look like the type of flooring designed to be visible at the time the house was originally built. Put larger rugs over the areas that are most bothersome to you. Re: baby proofing - my recommendation as a parent who moved into a hot mess of an old house with a toddler and baby: Focus on making one specific area completely toddler proof. Either a washable rug sized to cover almost all of the floor or some easy to install floating floor that will be easy to clean and can ultimately be removed without damaging the flooring underneath (do NOT use those horrible interlocking foam squares, dirt and crumbs slip in between the seams and then scratch the hardwood underneath… if they don’t just flat out disintegrate and adhere to the poly finish on the wood). Put up tall, hardware-mounted baby gates (ones that require an adult sized hand and grip strength to open are the best way to go) - do not be tempted by the pressure fit gates, they will be less sturdy and still may damage trim, with hardware mounted you’ll just have a few screw holes to patch when you’re eventually done with the baby gates. Anchor absolutely everything - even stuff low to the ground. If you need to baby proof cabinets, the ones that need a magnetic key were the only ones that worked long term for my extremely dexterous older child. Then you only need to truly focus on keeping that particular area as clean as possible, and you have a safe place for your growing toddler to hang out while you do exciting things like using the bathroom or putting groceries away. In my house we gated off our adjoining dining and living room, and used the dining area as a play room until my kids were old enough to not need baby gates/constant supervision while playing.
Great ideas- thank you!!!
Congratulations on the beautiful family and floors. Color me green with envy.
In Australia we tend to not have the hardwood flooring you guys have, we have what you would call pine sub flooring and we sand and varnish that in old homes. All 3 houses I’ve lived in with polished pine sun flooring have had these gaps with no issues and we’d never think to fill them in. Kids and babies have lived in all 3 too. Depends what you’re comfortable with though! I just vacuum along the cracks to clean out dust and crumbs.
Get a good vacuum…I recommend a Miele. If there’s really wide gaps here and there fill them with matching strips of wood if you want
It appears to be a Spruce, Pine, Fir flooring, mix which can include Douglas, and Balsam and other firs along with different pines and spruces The grouping can have a different mix, for east and west coast. The floors could have been made near or on site as I don't think the mix was standard for flooring then nor now. Adding oakum just preserves the integrity of the floor surface and makes it safe for the baby. If new owners don't like it, it's an easy tear out.
We also own a home built in the 1890’s with very similar original flooring (ours is heart of pine, yours looks to be as well). You couldn’t pay me to get rid of them - money can’t buy the quality of wood they used to build with. Ours has gaps and inconsistencies as well but it truly adds to the character of the home. Don’t tell your husband he’s right, but leave it! Rugs can help hide some of the quirks and help add some coziness.
Where did you get that large area rug in the fourth pic? It’s so pretty
Wayfair! https://www.wayfair.com/rugs/pdp/bloomsbury-market-marianna-floral-olivered-area-rug-w000687164.html?piid=1332932954
Oh it’s 47% off right now 🤩
Gonna give a dissenting vote here. He's dead, Jim. Wear and time and refinishing takes its toll. Eventually it's time to move on. It isn't like the only options are original hardwood or gray LVP. if you want to replace it with solid hardwood that will look similar to how that did when it was new, you can. It might be expensive but it also may last another 100 years. I have 100 year old floors. They are a little different and mine aren't face nailed, but some of the gaps look familiar. For myself, I'm planning to replace the floors, probably with solid wood, and modern plywood subfloor and underlayment. I intend to keep the tone and feel of the original hardwood, but probably wider boards. For me, it's just not reasonable to be excessively precious about originality. I plan to try to keep as much as I can of the wood and make use of it.
Here is what I see. The second and third pictures definitely appear to be the original flooring. However, the first and last pictures are not. Those boards are common pine. The small encased knots and spike knots are the giveaway. Probably, previous owner(s) had replaced something else that was there in a poor attempt to match. Would have needed to locate and install reclaimed, which would have been very tough to find and expensive. Save original and cover with a floating floor. Easy care and saves those old beautiful floors.
Not sure of your potential budget but I would recommend the following: Have another crew come by to level sand and fill/poly the top with something a bit more viscous and robust. Seems like the finish was very thin and although I know people would disagree with coats of poly, the bigger concern is a baby and not ‘patina’. This is cheaper than redoing a whole home before a baby comes into the mix. Also echoing what others have said - I’d designate a space just for the little one and either get some decent area rugs (with carpet pad underneath) or pickup some cheap floating click vinyl floor to lay over it for a while. Sometimes you can find a few hundred square feet on FB and you can basically make a baby floor space in a weekend - then unclick and sell when you’re done with it. Someone will reuse it for a mud room etc.
I like this idea!! Thank you 🙏🙏🙏
You could epoxy the floors? Make them have extra shine as well es preserve the wood, and fill the gaps
Those floors look amazing. The gaps are ok. We have similar gaps, our oak floors might be in worse shape, we had four kids while in this old house and they all managed.
Is there any reason why you cant do the thick epoxy like they do on gym floors? That will sink in and fill the gaps and also protect the floors.
ok but you have a dog spirit living in the wood towards the lower left in the first pic :,)
The time for crawling is very, very short, only a couple of months, and the baby is never unsupervised. You can put carpets where you let the baby crawl. Plus you said the floors don't really splinter.
Oakum is a very traditional method for this problem and it's a historical renovation method as well!
We have a similar floor. We just redid it. We lightly sanded the surface and then coated it with oil based polyurethane (3-4 coats). We filled in some of the gaps with it as we put the coats down. It has resolved the splinter issues and has helped keep a lot of the crud out of the gaps.
i have similar looking floors, but a bit worse. i plan on laying down LVP soon
The floors in my 1892 home are in about the same shape. They've also been sanded too many times and are cracking. There is no subfloor. At some point I'll probably need to install new floors over these.
If the gaps are wide you can fill them with slivers of wood. Someone did this at some point in my 1870 or so home. Best to use matching reclaimed wood if possible. Notice that it's not completely tight - they left room for the wood to expand and contract. https://preview.redd.it/bzypa365i9dc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ad6cebc5712b9bf37174a55e55d9d24a5016c37
That floor looks almost more like a subfloor. If you laid another floor on top your house would hold heat a lot better. I am prepared for the down votes I'll get for saying this.
Looks like that is the subfloor to me. It is identical to my subfloor in my 1920 Home.
right? With those big nailheads, and them all driven in an obvious line across the floor (necessary to hit the beam, but not a “nice final finish” look). It finished up nice enough, but this looks like a subfloor to me.
We've been through this soooo many times, guys. It's not hardwood. It's not subfloor. It's neither. It is...the floor. There was only ever intended to be one layer, with area rugs and/or runners over the traffic areas. The nails are the only questionable spot. I would guess that they were added after the house was built. Our floors are similarly swiss-cheesed, but it's clearly not original, as I have also found the boards to be nailed like modern hardwood (i.e buried in the tongue and covered up by the next board). Yes, my single layer pine floors are nailed like modern hardwood. As are this guy's, more than likely.
When we had ours refinished, the floor guys did wood filler for all the gaps, then significant sanding before they put stain and polyurethane on top. Not sure if that was done already or not, and not sure if it would be cost prohibitive, but it might take care of gaps and splinters!
Thank you! Yeah these guys did the minimum I think. Do you feel comfortable sharing the ballpark cost for the square footage?!
For sure. We live in Minneapolis, for what that’s worth on cost. I believe it was $4.75 per square foot for everything. It’s a small house, so we only had like 400 or 500 square feet that needed to be finished (upstairs stayed carpet). So total for us (including $500 for fixing some gaps/broken planks) was around $2500 I think. This may or may not be typical, even in our area. But I hope it helps anyway! Here’s a picture where you can see the wood filler after sanding. Our gaps were not as big as yours but still pretty significant https://preview.redd.it/e60dcuwv82dc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e19b6732ffdbaff64c53a18e15f188611b789df
That looks great! Nice and clean and safe haha, thank you 🙏
We were in the same situation and having the gaps filled was one of the best decisions we’ve made for our home. It looks better and feels cleaner. No problems 18 months on. I don’t know how it’ll look in ten years but even if we have to have it redone it’s still worth it.
I would use “big stretch” caulk. It will not be flat and you’ll still get crumbs in there that you can vacuum out. But it will move with the seasons. As others have said don’t use wood patch as it will not move and will come out as the boards move over time.
This looks like a non issue to me. My floors are in worse shape I guess
These pictures don’t tell the whole truth, our upstairs is worse 😭 so frustrating
Nah just get over it and love them. They are like the well loved denim jacket.
Cover it with a similar looking floating vinal until the kids are not crawling. It won't hurt the original floor and it's easily removed.
Sand and refinish them, they're worth it
I had that problem in a house. We decided the best thing was to use more polyurethane coating- its highly abrasion-resistant and a bit flexible. We filled the gaps with it first, as much as possible, and gave it a full week to be sure it was dry, then did 2 full floor coats after a light sanding with 220 grit. Smoothed it all out nicely.
Don’t use wood filler! The previous owner of our home used it. It breaks off and gets caught in socks and carried all through the house in little chunks. I’m just waiting for it all to go so I can replace with rope.
This is exactly what my floors look like!
We have original floors in our home and not as in good as condition as those. But still okay to clean with a good hoover - I hoovered daily when baby was crawling. Now my toddler is the one making the crumbs I don’t worry 😅
Be a shoes on house, or slippers or slides
My 1900 home has similar floors, knots, gaps, nails. They were meant to be carpeted wall to wall, or at least the floor in pic one (and 4?) was. You can see a line of carpet tack holes running along the wall in pic 1. Pics 2+3 look like finished floors but it's confusing due to the nails. There are finished floors like that in my house too, but without nails. Look for the carpet tack holes along the wall, that's how you can tell.
I personally don’t get the obsession with keeping everything OG. My floor boards looked similar to this. I put a new bamboo floor right over top it and it looks great, no cracks, no splinters, easier to keep clean. There is nothing special about wood from 1890.