Huge gap in wood floor...

[Clarissa Gridley]

I apologize if something similar has been posted already. My boyfriend and I are first time homeowners and we bought a fixer-upper. We’ve been slowly working on the home ourselves. We tore up the carpet in the living room and there’s this giant gap that it looks like has been filled with a random piece of wood and then filled in with something that I can only relate to joint compound. How can I fix this? It looks awful! Sorry I don’t have a better photo.

 

[bud16415]

First off welcome to the forum. A better photo would help, but many times the plan was to put down carpet so the repair was just some blocking below and a piece of plywood and some floor leveling compound to make it flat.


People lived with wood floors and 50-60 years ago wanted the latest thing with carpet. Now we know we love the wood floors again and want to refinish them.


You will need to first get back to the point this old repair was started at and then see what you have. Wood can be found that will match and some of the floor removed in a way new wood can be weaved in to make it look like it was always there. The floor is tongue and groove and nailed down so it gets a little tricky getting pieces out and replacing them as some woodwork has to be done to work around the T&G.


Get some better photos and the guys will walk you thru the process.

 

[bud16415]

 

[Steve123]

Are you talking about the thin strip that looks like a wall used to be there, or the spot at center right? As bud mentioned, new pieces (if you can find similar) can be weaved in. Rather looks like a dark stain has been added later. Matching it will be hard. Maybe you can sand the whole floor (assuming floor is solid hardwood) and re-stain, but would have to target same color, since you will still have stain lines between board. I think your more practical options are new carpet or new wood flooring. If you just want to replace the joint compound, you can find sub-flooring fillers at the big box stores. You could even use Bondo automotive filler -- but somebody here will call me a hack for suggesting it.