Lacing in New Boards

Plank and strip flooring with isolated areas of damage can be saved with careful patching.

- Mary Ellen Polson

Flooring made of old-growth wood is beautiful, but sometimes the floor comes with an undesirable history. Termite damage, burn marks, pet stains, and signs of other mistreatment can so disfigure sections of wood that the only alternative is replacement.

Fortunately, ripping out the entire floor isn’t necessary. A bit of skillful patching can heal ancient wounds. There are two main challenges: matching the wood in all of its specifics, and “lacing in” or staggering the repair so that the patch blends with the rest of the floor.

Finding a source of replacement wood may be as simple as salvaging a few boards from the attic floor—or as time consuming as seeking out the right stock from reclaimed-lumber dealers scattered across the country. Obviously, the wood should be of the same species, be it heart pine, oak, or chestnut, and milled the same way (i.e., tongue-and-groove strip vs. shiplapped wide plank), and to the same dimensions. The cut is important too: for example, flat-sawn oak can look remarkably different from quartersawn oak once the floor is laid.

The growth rings on flat-sawn boards appear as a tangential grain—curved lines running up and down the boards, a pattern some call “cathedral arches.” Quarter-sawn wood produces boards with a vertical grain like pinstriping. The denser the original wood, the tighter the pinstriping. Less obvious but just as essential is the age of the wood. If your house was built in 1910, you want wood milled from roughly the same era.