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Thanks for all of the replies. I'm still weighing the options. I am familiar with the inevitable issues that come with non t/g old pine floors, having lived with them before. The floors in Charlestown had some really wide gaps between boards - some I had previously in Marblehead were as wide as 16 - 18 inches. There was a neat character to those floors- probably not for everyone, but we liked it... and it's interesting knowing that bare feet have worn the pathways in the old boards for a couple hundred years. I have occasionally had to go around the places and tap down the nails a bit- or remove and replace them and then set the old heads (nipped off the old nails) in with a little epoxy to keep the look. I did snag the ball of my foot on one once. OUCH! In my reaction to the pain, that spot unfortunately earned a whack from my framing hammer, and took on a nice new grid-print around the old square nail. Usually I'm more careful than that...
Yes, the boards are as long as 12 feet, not inches... and this was indeed flooring from an old home up here in Mass. Actually some of the boards might be a bit longer- have not heard back from the seller. One good thing- it comes with matching baseboard stock, so the install should be fairly straightforward.
I'm going to go look at the stuff and see what kind of condition it's in. I am trying to make the house a bit more enviro-friendly; will be getting new windows/doors, re-doing the insulation in attic to add vapor barrier, installing septic system for dog crap, etc... so I like the idea of using either new renewable non-glue bamboo or thereabouts or old/recycled floor. Again, it's a smallish space (actually a fairly small house!) so it's not too big a project that if I installed it and it was horrible I could tear it up and start over.
Thanks again-
k
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