Have you recently done home renovations that involved removing a wall in a room with hardwood flooring? If so, you are likely now left with a big ugly gap in your hardwood where that wall used to be. Before you think about making a basic and standard repair, you may want to consider the possibility of adding a little style and creativity to the repair by coming up with a custom design that can look less like a repair and more like a planned strip of decorative hardwood. Follow this step-by-step guide, and you’ll have no problem turning a standard repair into a unique design opportunity.

Step 1: Create a Layout- if your design involves any kind of intricate detail, you’ll want to make sure you prepare properly in order to make sure the details, lines, and patterns of your design are going to be straight and centered. Start by determining the centre point of the recently knocked down wall, this will allow you to accurately measure from the centre line to both edges of the missing section. You should also make sure you know the length of the missing section from one end to the other. When laying down any of your design’s border pieces, you can start from each end and have them meet in the middle, rather than starting from one end and working your way down. You don’t want to be stuck with a smaller cut piece at one end that looks out of place.

Step 2: Make Straight and Accurate Cuts- any cuts you’re going to make need to be nice and straight. To make straight cuts for any border pieces, consider using a track saw, which will give you a nice, straight factory cut. For any smaller cuts, or areas that are hard for a track saw to reach, you can use a small oscillating tool.

Step 3: Prepare the Subfloor- before you start laying down the new wood, you need to make sure the subfloor underneath your design is nice and flat. The last thing you want is part of your new strip to be higher than the existing floor. If you find any uneven sections of subfloor, you should use a rotary sander to wear down the higher spots. If there are any dips in the subfloor, you can just use flooring shims.

Step 4: Installing the New Floor– When it comes time to install the new floor, you can place beads of glue all along the length of the subfloor before putting in the new pieces. If you’ve done a good job sanding down and using shims to make the subfloor perfectly flat, your new floor should be level and even with the existing floor. If this is not the case, you can simply use a sander again to even out the trouble spots.

Step 5: The Finishing Touch- your final step is to apply the finish. If your new strip of specially designed flooring is going to be looking its best, you will need to choose the right tool for this. Rollers are always a good choice seeing as they lay finish down uniformly without any pull marks that other tools might create.

We hope you will now feel more inspired the next time you are dealing with a missing section of hardwood! Remember, after all is said and done, your repair doesn’t have to look like a repair.