Using Windows to Create Unique Wood Floor Designs

I had someone call me from the Lake Stevens area in Washington state recently who wanted to put a design in their wood floor The floor was pre-finished which makes design work a little more time consuming but not impossible. Since the wood floor was pre-finished is wasn't possible to fill in spaces as is common when inlaying patterns in unfinished wood floors.

After making the 120-mile drive to get to my customer/student's home I started to evaluate the situation and listen to problems he was encountering. I also listened to the plan to inlay the pattern of their windows into the front entryway.

The first thing I had to help him with was to complete the installation to the entryway with the flooring. He had started the installation in the kitchen and dining room. The flooring ran into the washroom which had a door into the living room. The problem was joining the flooring together where the kitchen met the hallway on one end and the living room met the hallway on the other end. This is called going around an island in the wood flooring business.

This often happens when going around cabinets in the middle of a kitchen where you install the wood flooring around each side of the cabinets in the middle of the kitchen and hope they meet together on the other side. This was the same idea except we were going around several walls.

Once I had helped him rejoin the flooring together it was time to start the inlay. His flooring was oak which was stained red mahogany color. He had purchased some natural colored pre-finished wood floor the pattern.

We decided to use a full width of the boards to duplicate the frame around the window and then ripped the natural flooring three quartesr of an inch to duplicate the cross pieces in the window..

These cross pieces had to be re-grooved with my router so that they would be tongue and grooved into the floor.

I first established where the perimeter of the pattern was to be with the full width boards. I had these in place by the time I left the first day. He installed all the flooring outside of that frame so it was ready for the inlay the next time I came.

I installed the sections around the sides first to make the pattern. The center of the pattern was all "perfect cuts". "Perfect cuts" are cuts that match so perfectly that you can't tell where the flooring is cut is in the middle of the floor. I was cutting off the groove end of each board and then routering in a groove on the end of the board.so that it fit as well as if the factory had made it that custom length.

Once I had completed the inlay the customer/student took over the rest of the installation. I invited him to call if he needs anymore help.

This is only the second pre-finished wood floor I had done in 35 years as a wood flooring installer which involved a border. It was also the second time I had created a pattern which took the design from the windows. The first time I copied a semicircle window over the doorway. but that was a sand and finish on site job. I am sure it won't be my last. for either.

So if you are looking for some unique wood flooring designs try looking through a window.

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