plywood floors

Has anyone ever tried to just use the plywood subfloor and paint, stencil, stain to make it look like old hardwood flooring? I have a house that has a kitchen dining area that is big and I don't have the money for the wood floor yet, but I can't stand the old kitchen carpet. We are going to open the dining kitchen area to make one big room and this would help my budget for this year and I think it could be fun. I just don't know how to take care of the seams to make it look kinda uniform, or at least not have cracks, or maybe I should try for uniform cracks! Any ideas or am I just nuts?

 

I wouldn't suggest this. The plywood would generate a ton of splinters and you can't sand it to get it smooth enough for bare feet to walk on.

If your house is built on grade (on a concrete slab) rather than over a crawlspace or basement, you can paint the concrete to look like hardwood or anything else you want.

Take a look at these:

This site has the How To's

and this one has some Inspiration

Leighsah

 

I have read many forum posts where folks on DIY budgets have sanded and sealed subfloors, painted, stenciled, and have opted to be creative until budgets allowed desired floor covering options. I, personally, would do the same thing. I would rather "hold out" until I could afford hardwood floors (my favorite) or whatever floor covering my budget would allow. Keep us posted on your decision so we can share. Best regards.

 

Since TwelvePole suggested this had been done before previously, I did a more thorough search.

I did find these:
plywood flooring

Building Products Plus

I stand corrected. These sites obviously prove it can be done, but then moving onto the cost factor. Plywood is a commodity and the price changes with each shipment. Since cost was the factor you mentioned, putting these plywoods shown above or a furniture grade plywood (which can be sanded, but is not graded for exterior use) on your floor would be about $35 to $40 a sheet for the birch plywood(4 x 8 is the standard size size which gives you 32 SF). ( I have no idea what the 1 1/8" stuff costs.) You'd have to have a significant moisture barrier since this plywood isn't graded as such. An additional cost and I'm not even sure this could be done. It would depend upon what is below the floor (crawl space, basement). Jump in here TwelvePole.

I wish you luck on this one.

Leighsah

 

Since this is going to be a major remodel,the old kitchen carpet has to be removed anyway, I already know that it has plywood under it so what have I got to loose, even if I paint it solid first to take care of splinters and then stripe it off to disguise the cracks, I know I'll need to fill and its been my experience that wood fillers never work well, if you have a good filler to try let me know. I own a company that manufactures wood and metal restoration products, so I know how to refinish wood and antiques and clean and shine existing finishes,but this is going to be interesting. I really want to section it off and apply stains in contrasting shades to look like old pine squares. I know I can mix stains etc. I will take pics when I get to that point. I may even start with just the back door entry to experiment. I can always cover it up. I have a full month of Home and Garden shows and then I can play with remodeling. I'll let you know, in the meantime if anyone comes up with pictures, I love visuals, please let me know. Thanks for the replys. Victorianhouse