Gaps in wooden floorinf

[investor mum]

I have bought a Queenslander in which the timber flooring used in the kitchen, dining and living room is exterior flooring, hense daylight can be seen through it. Those rooms were probably verandah in the original house. How can I seal the gaps?
I thought of nailing masonite underneath the floor between the joists, or filling the gaps with some sort of sealer, or placing a false floating floor on top, or tile or carpet over the top. I would like to retain the timber look if possible. Any ideas?
Investor Mum

 

[wylie]

We had a similar problem in a queenslander we lived in. We had our kitchen cabinet maker run us off metres of 1cm wide x 1cm deep rosewood (same as kitchen benchtops and doors) and our builder routed out a 1cm x 1cm gap between each floorboard and glued in the pieces. We then had whole floor sanded (which we had to do anyway). Finished look was original boards with the tiny "pinstripe" board between each one. It cost hardly anything and looked absolutely fantastic, a real talking point.

Wylie.

 

[investor mum]

What a great idea. Thanks Wylie

 

[Brenda Irwin]

Since the kitchen is termed a 'wet area', you may want to consider laying vinyl there. The amount of traffic in the kitchen will certainly wear polished boards rapidly.

I am currently sealing my dining room floor gaps with dowel. The floor is 6 inch pine and as hard as a rock. The sand paper in the belt sander will attest to that. Being 100yrs old, the floor has shrunk and very unevenly too, so just sheeting over it and vinyl wasn't really an option either as I would have to sand the bumps out of the floor before that anyway.

Also the floor originally had some sort of bitumen poured on it and then green paint added. Thankfully most of this finish has worn off. Anyway, back to the dowel which I buy in varying widths from the hardware. I grind them down a little to fit in the grooves roughly and then bash them into position with a hammer. So far, they haven't moved. On small little narrow bits, I have been using the kids paddlepop sticks and gluing them in. What the heck, kids were going to throw them out anyway.

 

[layer181]

I have fill up the gaps in the past with black sikoflex to create the look of a ships deck,

 

[layer181]

I have filled up the gaps in the past with black sikoflex to create the look of a ships deck,