Get rid of the orange floor, use Bona!

I love to get rid of the orange solvent based coatings on old floors. It's amazing what a difference it makes just to sand and expose the raw timber. People often get supprised how light the floors are regardless what type it is. I primarely use a Swedish coating called Bona Traffic HD. It retains the natural beauty of the floors without changing colour. It's not cheap, but well worth the monnies considering you can move in on the floors after just 24 hrs ( after the last coat). Also there is very little smell as it has low solvent content (VOC) - less than 5 %. Being a top of the line product with 67% higher wear resistance than the normal Bona Traffic. I have recoated a 10 year old Tassie oak flooring wich had the normal Bona Traffic with Traffic HD and the customers where very happy. So I use the best quallity as often as possible.Here are some before and after shots of a Baltic Pine floor in Brighton.

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After

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Thanks for popping by!

Aluminium trims for floating floors.

I just wanted to share some of the aluminium trims for timber floating floors that are available at Embelton in Huntingdale, Melbourne.

There are some different ones.

U -channel, Z-channel and L- shaped ones.

Scandinavian look stairs.

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To get a Swedish looking interior, use  white (or very light colours) walls and natural mat finished timber floors. Even white stair with natural timber steps looks so clean and fresh. This stair had carpet and a dark red stain on it. My customers thanked me for suggesting the 'Swedish look'.

Another couple wanted me to sand their Tassie oak  floorboards and paint them with white concrete paint. They love the clean Swedish looking floors. So I first primed the floors with Solver pink primer

And then used  2 coats of Viponds white concrete paint.

This is the result.

Parmate vintage Oak pre-finished floating floor

I where asked to lay a pre-finished floating floor for my sister-in-law and her man. I suggested that they go to Fauls auction rooms in Oakleigh. We all went and had a look at their huge range of flooring. There is a difference between the cheaper range laminate flooring and the more expensive venered flooring. In general the laminate flooring only have a 1 mm toplayer and the venered flooring have 3-4 mm toplayer wich can be sanded when it gets worn. After we had been at Fauls we went to Ezi Floor Products  in Oakleigh where they found a oak board they liked. This one is called Parmate  vintage oak and is finnished with Bona's  mat finish. The benefit with these boards is they can be over coated with Bona Traffic range of coatings. Wich will give them a longer life. Here are some pictures.

It's a rustic warm look. Wich feels nice under foot.

A new Tasmainian oak floor in Caulfield North.

I had the oppertunity to lay,sand and finish 220 m2 of Tassie oak flooring in Caulfield North for LBA Constructions earlier this year. The owners of the house had the floors specially milled to 65/14mm. Being a very narrow flooring it took a while to lay, but the result is great.

The floor was fully glued and secret nailed. The floors was laid and then left for other trades to finish, except for the scirting boards wich was installed after the floors was totally finished. I did several colour samples direct on the floor  for the owners to see. They decided on a ebony/ natural mix. I used Bona Dri Fast direct stain first and then Bona traffic HD Extra Matt finish. Here are some photos from the job.

Get the blond look baltic pine.

The owners of this Elwood house wanted a clean blond looking floor. They did't want the boards to turn orange as it can with solvent based polyuruthane. So Bona Dri fast white direct stain and Bona Traffic HD satin finish was their choice. As Bona Traffic Hd is one of the markets most durable and has the lowest VOC, the choice was easy.

Here are some before and after photos.

Renovating a teak outdoor table.

The owners of this imported Spanish teak table ( Ketal) asked me if I could help them with finishing the table. I sanded it to a 100 grit finsh as I do with deckings. Enough to be smooth but still absorb some oil. We used a Norwegian decking oil called Flood Deks Olje ( for teak and other fine boating woods). I started with 2 coats and then it's a once a month wipe over to keep it looking good.

Here are some photos:

    Finished.

To keep it from going grey and getting water stains, it needs to be wiped over once a month with the oil. If its in direct sun and weather. Otherwise if under cover maybe once 6-12 months to keep it in good condition. It's all a matter of personal prefrence when you think it's needed. But do it more often than not to keep it to your liking.