Repairing a Tasmanian Oak Floor

Feast Watson Black Japan Stain

Handley Lo-Sheen Finish

Frankston South, VIC

The Ultimate Transformation: 70-Year-Old Tasmanian Oak in Frankston South

This Tasmanian Oak floor in Frankston South stands as one of the most amazing, dramatic transformations my wife Lisa and I have ever tackled. To put it bluntly: this floor was rough. Very rough.

The home itself is around 70 years old and features incredible continuous floorboards up to 5 metres in length. That is something you simply never see in today’s newer builds. Modern timber is harvested from plantation-grown, sustainable forests, meaning trees are never allowed to mature into the giants they were 70 years ago. But hey, that's progress for ya.

Over the decades, the house had undergone multiple rounds of renovations, all sort of stacked on top of each other—a trend that was huge in the late 1960s and 70s. Our first task was to strip back some of those sub-par renovation efforts where previous trades had lazily patched holes with particleboard or pine instead of matching the original Tassie Oak.

Once our meticulous carpentry and repair work was complete, the entire floor was given a superfine sand. We then applied a full-strength Black Japan stain. Apart from being the owner’s absolute favourite look, this deep, rich stain worked miracles to seamlessly hide the extensive pet urine stains and watermarks that had accumulated over the last seven decades.

To lock it all in, we finished the floor with Handley Lo-Sheen polyurethane, providing maximum hard-wearing protection and a stunning, sophisticated look.

The following pictures really showcase the whole transformation from a mess to a masterpiece

As pictured, the state of the floors is very poor - but, there was still enough potential to work with, so we got on with it

Pulling out the old false floor gave us enormous satisfaction and a few surprises as we had no idea what we might find underneath it all...

We ended up finding an old back verandah, some steps, landings, and a whole heap of mouse poo

With all the old and damaged flooring out of the way, it was now time to start re-building the sub-floor and laying our second-hand boards which we sourced from one of the many second-hand flooring places we deal with

At last we get all the boards in and it's time to get serious with the sanding side of things. As you can see, it's almost a miracle just how clean the boards can come up once we hit them with our heavy-duty sanding equipment - this is a pretty exciting time for us, as Lisa and I get to see all of our hard work starting to come together

With the boards now superfine sanded the real fun work begins, as we now get to apply the Feast Watson Black Japan stain. Lisa and I apply the stain by hand. I put it down and she comes along next to me blending it in all nice, neat 'n' even

As always, with staining floors we do the tricky, hard to reach spots first. Once dry, we can then easily fill in the blanks. It's a brilliant system

Applying the coatings over the stain is the next piece of the puzzle. It's easy enough to do, just as long as you're willing to take the time, as we do, to get it right

Resisting the urge to rush through the final finishing is the key to a brilliant stain job - fortunately, we are both blessed with great patience

The Black Japan isn't..., well, it isn't as black as many expect it to be. It's more of an intense dark brown colour. The Black Japan still gives enough coverage to hide many of the old stains from 70 years of being lived on

The Feast Watson stain picks up each and every twist and turn of grain - it's even more impressive in person than it is in a picture. But, nonetheless, here's some more pictures

THERE!!!

From a mess to a masterpiece

Lisa-Jane

Big Bertha

Lisa & Bertha - two of the hardest workers in the industry

HOMEPAGE

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