All of our subfloors and the majority of the main floors are Yellow Pine that we milled. We used screws instead of nails to prevent squeaky floors. We put the floors down in July 2018. In March 2019, after allowing for shrinkage, we unscrewed all the floorboards in the entry way, dining room and living room and tightened them back in place, filling in gaps with new strips of wood.

We weren’t sure how to fill in between the boards. Online research suggested a rope and tar scenario, so we attempted that in the laundry room. It didn’t take long to determine that stuffing rope between the boards was not feasible. The local hardware store suggested caulk, and that proved to be very effective. With some trial and error, we put down one coat of polyurethane on the floors, then caulked, and then put the second coat of urethane down. This prevented the caulk from bleeding into the raw wood. It was a slow and laborious process and required 22 tubes of caulk.

NOTABLE FEATURE – Some of the floorboards are incredibly long – 22 feet long. When we ripped them on the table saw, I was outside the front door holding the end of the board as I helped guide it, aiding our carpenter who was guiding the board through the table saw.