Daniel Reddy
“So that’s how it ended up in my house,” says Daniel Reddy of Villas Park, Ill.-based Reddy’s Hardwood Flooring Inc.
That job was about eight years ago, and Reddy decided to save the rejected boards (the cupping was barely noticeable) and install around 400 square feet in his home, where he incorporated custom designs and a Peruvian walnut feature strip with knots in the corners.
When he figured out the layout, Reddy cut the 8-inch-wide, rift-and-quarter-sawn boards using a table saw and miter saw, then glued and nailed them. He used the full lengths of the boards in the dining room and kitchen, loving the look of the longer boards.
The small hallway in the home was one of the more difficult spaces to design and install due to the tight quarters. "The tighter the spot, the more difficult, but it comes with the territory,” Reddy says. “Being at my house, I was just kind of having fun with it, coming up with whatever kind of worked with the material we had.”
Reddy also incorporated the 8-inch-wide planks as risers on the basement staircase connecting with the hallway.
RELATED: Wood Floor of the Week: a Walnut Medallion Made From Scraps
The boards were already hand-scraped and stained when they were rejected from the previous project, so Reddy just hand-scraped the Peruvian walnut feature strip in the dining room floor and stained it to match the boards. He coated the floors with waterborne finish.
The slight cupping that got the boards nixed from their original destination has remained barely noticeable, but the grain has only gotten more and more interesting to Reddy since he gave it a second chance to shine.
“I've been living on that for probably eight years now, and I could just sit there and stare at the floor all day,” Reddy says.
Suppliers:
Finish: Loba-Wakol | Miter saw: Makita | Router: Porter Cable | Stain: DuraSeal | Table saw: Bosch
