Michael: Now that we’ve been installed the window and our country retreat and the interior of the house is secure from the elements. Its time to install our Southern Pine Wood Floor, we went with Southern Pine because its durable and it has rustic look that’s perfect for a country retreat. We’ve been installed 1x6 inch tongue and groove planks and the futuristic theme we’ve chosen number 2 great planks that have more knots and imperfection than higher grades. Eric Gee with the Southern Pine Council is the certified forester; he was our adviser on this project.
Eric Gee.: Southern Pine Floors have been used extensively since colonial times for in homes or in schools, churches and in commercial buildings. It’s going to be hold up, as well as any other wood floor and you were able to surface it and refinish it several times throughout the its life time.
Michael: The first thing the installers do is place a layer of polyethylene film over the subfloor. This will reduce the chance that moisture infiltrate or canonization will form on the under side of the floor. Then the group with stand 30 pound working felt to add another layer of moisture protection, when the moisture barriers are fully installed its time to begin lying the planks. The gangs choose this special flooring staple through the plank edge at the 45-degree angle driving them deep into the subfloor. Once the first planks are secured, the process goes very quickly. The crew is a rubber mallet to make sure the planks fit from way together. As the installation progresses, the crew takes care to stagger the joints for the planks meet in the end, this prevents the appearance of long and unsightly joint lines.
Once your floor is installed its time to picked color and go ahead and stain it. Your really go with any option that you want, you might dislike the natural wood look of the Southern Pine so you can just put a seal around the top of this and no dirt gets down in it. Very easy to maintain and it looks good, of course stain colors coming on million different designs. Anything that you like, now this is a little different. This is the Stress Wood and it come like this, it came like a ordinary piece but what we did was we actually bid on the wood. You take the hammer and just hit it in different angles I will lay the screw on top on this one and several places and just pound it on it. A lot of people used change once the floor is install and coming just weep the floor. And then when you put your stain on top of it you can see that parts of the stain stay down in the indentation. So, really changes the color of the floor and looks great.
And over time is you wear on the floor and looks like it always did its pre distressed, you already got that look and it is very easy to take care off.
Eric Gee: This is a good example of how the floor tells a life of a tree, it tells the story. Each one of these marks on the flooring is a knot. The little pin holes here are where the stem had needles growing off of it. You can actually tell how the tree grew by looking at the rings on the tree is growth very rapidly when it was a young tree as a ____ older its slow down and growth. Then you can tell that by the spacing between the rings.
Michael: The grand pattern that appears on the surface of the plank is determined by what part of the tree the plank was cut from.
Eric Gee: This is good cross section of the Southern Pine tree, when a board is cut out of this area of the tree it end up with what is called Vertical Ground Flooring with the wood and the grain comes out of the top of the floor. You actually see the actual rings of the floor, when a board is cut out of this area it end up with flat ground flooring where the ground runs along the link to the piece of wood.
Michael: Southern Pine Flooring has a lot of character and because it’s an easily renewable resource there is an environmental benefit as well.
Eric Gee: Southern Pine is good for environment because we regenerate and we replant the trees that we used. Today we are on our 4th generation of forest since the civil war and we are making sure that we replant every day to ensure that there is forest for our children and grandchildren.
Michael: For more information on how durable and attractive Southern Pine Flooring can add beauty and distinction to your new house, visit the Southern Pine Council website at southernpine.com.
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