“This was some of the oldest and widest pine I’d ever seen; it was a job that scared me a little at first,” says Benny Powell of Plymouth, Mass.-based Powell Flooring. “I worried it was above my skill level, so I priced it high hoping I wouldn’t get it—and then she hired me anyway, saying she knew I was the best fit for the project.” Powell is no stranger to historic floors, but this had boards as wide as 22 to 24 inches in a circa-1893 oceanfront home in Marshfield, Mass. Some areas required repair, but “there was, to my knowledge, no way to replicate that kind of wood,” even with custom-milling, Powell explains. Instead he created inlays using reclaimed heart pine. After sanding with the big machine, running his HydraSand wasn’t an option due to the large gaps between the boards. “The solution was a combination of hand-scraping, targeted edging and a lot of hand sanding,” Powell says. Because of the unevenness and big gaps, there was no way to buff it between poly coats with a rotary buffer. He called his mentor, Daniel Boone, for advice. “I told him there was 2,600 square feet ... He told us we’d have to hand-rub it. I said, ‘This job is a little bit out of my skill level.’ He said, ‘Benny, just go in there and do it with confidence,’ and that’s kind of become our motto. Any time I’m in over my head and I’m kind of wondering what the hell I’m doing there, I just put my head down and do it with confidence.”
SUPPLIERS: Abrasives: Norton | Adhesive: Wakol | Buffer, Edger, Multi-Disc Sander: American Sanders | Filler: Woodwise | Finish: Bona Woodline | Laser, Router: Bosch | Moisture barrier: Fortifiber Aquabar | Moisture meter: Delmhorst | Nailer: Bostitch | Sander (big machine): Lägler Hummel | Sander (palm): Mirka | Saws: Makita | Vacuum: Festool
