{backyard art studio} reclaimed wood floor {&} a tutorial

I got the flooring glued down today! It took more time than I would have liked although not a whole lot of it was hands on time..... some of the boards had warped when I stained them because I got them a little too wet, so I had to really weight them down as the glue dried in order to get them (at least mostly) flat.

I used a tacky glue zig-zaged on the back of each board to attach the floor

I ended up using several kids encyclopedias to weight the boards down as the glue set..... I started trying to do smaller sections and weighting down with my iron (not on of course), but that was going to take for ever because the iron really didn't completely cover much surface area so I went to grab the books to use and they not only more evenly cover a larger area but I think they are a little heavier too since I stacked them 5 volumes deep

first half of the floor finished and the glue dry

Now I'm just waiting for the second half of the floor to set/dry and my next step after that will be finishing the floor..... I'm not entirely sure how/what I'm going to use for that.... I *think* I want a shiny finish but I'm not 100% and I want to use something that's not overly wet because I don't want to risk any of the boards re-warping.  I think I will try just a few boards first to make sure it's going to work out the way I want before I do the whole floor.  Not sure if I'll get to that today/tonight or not though... hopefully I will be able to do at least the test strips so that I can let them dry at least overnight without being too impatient (lol).

In the meantime though I did promise a tutorial on how I stained/aged the floor boards....

you will need:
-enough craft sticks (regular, narrow or wide width) to cover the floor area you are doing
-a knife or blade that you can cut the sticks with
-acrylic craft paints in a couple different shades of brown and gray
-water (I just worked on it at my kitchen sink so I could run it quickly under the tap and that worked well)
-paper towels
-small paint brush

{L-R} Step 1: cutting the craft sticks into planks; Step 2: dryfitting and trimming the planks; Step 5: wetting the plank; and the plank after using the option 3 technique; Step 6: using the option 3 technique

{1} start by cutting the curved ends off of the crafts sticks using a craft knife or blade to make them into planks (I started trying to do it with an x-acto knife but found that the angle of the blade in the picture worked a lot better for it for me.
{2} once you have enough planks cut dry fit them to your space and trim them to fit.  You can stagger and fit them any way you think looks best.  I started with a full piece and as I got to the end of one row and cut a plank to fit I used the remainder of that plank to start the next row.  Once you are happy with how they fit number each plank on the back so that you can get it back together just right (especially if like me you didn't measure the planks when you cut the curved ends off and your planks aren't all the same length).  I did also put an arrow to mark which direction the planks were laying, but I don't think this was really necessary.
{3} mix paints if necessary to get a slightly gray medium brown color, which will be the stain for the planks.  You will also need a medium-ish gray for the aging so have that handy at this point as well. I also had a light gray that I did just a couple planks with for a little more variety.
{4} Before staining and aging the planks I put them all together in a bag and pulled them out randomly to work on.... I wanted the colors of each plank on the floor to be a little different since it was meant to be reclaimed wood and I wanted it randomly distrubuted over the space.  I didn't want it to look too patchwork-y though so I tried to get most of the planks a similar tone of color.  If you want to plan the coloring out specifically you can do that as well at this point, but I was really happy with how the random method turned out
{5} working one plank at a time: wet the plank under water. Make sure not to get it too wet though... that's why some of mine were warped because they ended up getting too wet in the whole process.  While the plank is still wet brush it with the base color you have mixed.  At this point there were several different processes I used so you can choose which one or ones you want to use.  it's good to have some extra planks to play around with and see what you like:
    Option 1: simply let the paint and water sink into the plank
    Option 2: dab the wet paint with a paper towel to give it some texture
    Option 3: wipe the plank down with a paper towel to remove and texture some of the paint
{6} next will come the aging. I used several different techniques here too so here are your options:
    Option 1: while the stain is still wet (without having the excess liquid absorbed off the surface) wet brush your gray paint onto the plank (making sure not to completely cover the surface) and let both paints absorb into the board together (if the gray is too dark/strong you can dab a bit with a paper towel)
    Option 2: let the base/stain color dry a bit and then wet brush on some gray
    Option 3: squeeze a small dab of gray paint onto the plank and spread it out/wipe it off with a paper towel.  You can adjust how much gray is on it by how much you rub it with the paper towel.  You'll probably want the plank to still be at least a little wet when you do all this just to give you a little more time to work, but you could potentially probably do it dry.

You can also "wash" some of the color back off by running it under the water some more, but again be careful about how wet you get the plank.  Play around with the different techniques or combinations of techniques to get just the look you like.

I had also considered having flaking paint on some of the boards but ultimately decided against it for the flooring (although I *might* do the ceiling of the porch area with "reclaimed wood" as well and have the "flaking" paint on them) I didn't end up actually trying it (yet anyway) but I was going to wait until the staining and aging was completely dry and then paint on a crackle medium and the paint color and then once that had dried and crackled going back over it with some sandpaper and maybe a craft knife to flake portions of it off.