How To Install And Finish Plywood Flooring 

Way more details in the website article: www.ibuildit.ca/other%20projects/Home%20Improvement/more-plywood-floor.html You can now follow what I'm doing on Instagram: instagram.com/i_build_it.ca/ Ways YOU can help support the work I do in making these videos: Plans for sale: www.ibuildit.ca/plans.html Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=865843&ty=h Website: www.ibuildit.ca/ Facebook: facebook.com/I-Build-It-258048014240900/ Instagram: instagram.com/i_build_it.ca/ Google+: plus.google.com/+JohnHeisz/

Anyone would think you paid a fortune for this floor. That's a wonderful job.

GREAT floor John. This really shows how you can achieve a "professional" result by doing the labor yourself. AND you can control the color and finish better not to mention the cost. I definitely will keep this process in mind.

Thank you for this tutorial! I was actually looking at the old article on plywood floors just the other day, and I am going to try it out now. Perfect timing on this project and your finished product looks really great.

WOW! I never knew that a plywood floor could look so good! That is really great looking work. Changed my view of plywood flooring.

I am now in the process of installing plywood flooring in my master suite. Everyone thought I was crazy for using plywood, but the floors are beautiful and durable. Every time someone protested my decision, I pulled up this video and it shut them up (with mouth wide open). LOL. I think you got at least 15 new subscribers after that. Although I love woodworking and anything that involves building, I have never done anything like this before, so doing this was a challenge. That I totally concurred, thanks to you. I cut the boards myself with a circular saw and a clamp on saw guide. I sanded the edges and glued and nailed them down, after measuring each board to fit my space.. I covered more than 400 sq ft for less than $200.00. whoot whoot (that's me doing the happy dance) I must've watched this video 30 times. And read the article at least 5. Great details, great teaching. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That turned out way nicer than I ever would have expected. Great video, thanks!

wow i would have never thought to use plywood, it turned out really great!

This looks great John. I've considered doing this in my house since your first article on it.

John, turned out great. I appreciate your discussion while applying the various coats. Helps to understand why and the benefits of your approach. Would not have known that this was made of plywood. Great video and project.

I love the concept of plywood flooring John. Looks Great!

I was skeptical at first, but that turned out awesome! Nice job John. Cheers, Chris.

WOW!!! John the floor came out great! I have plywood flooring but in sheets. I love how nice this looks and a great color choice too.

i just did the first bedroom of my house with plywood. I stained the boards first with a rag. thinking brushing on stain after laying, like your doing here will speed things up. I'm loving the look, and staying motivated...even though my lower back and knees are shot from all the bending. Each day getting more used to using these muscles, things are getting easier. Also my skill on the tablesaw has improved, cut 5 sheets today( buying sheets as I go because the hardware store stores these sheets flatter than i can at home), so the next bedroom will be pretty much gap-free as i measured each and every board and are all the same. I knew this would be a case of getting better the more i do the flooring process. My last rooms to lay are main areas in the house - living room and hallway..by then. I will be a pro at this process. Thanks for the inspiration and tips.

Yes, I love it. I always wondered about a plywood floor. Thank you so much for the look ahead....

I am amazed at how nice that turned out, great job!

wow, that looks sharp, love your creativity, and passion for the quality of the presentation.

That's a superb result for plywood. Congrats john!

Beautiful floor John. A real winner, cheap and fairly durable on top of pretty to behold. Nice video to, thanks for putting it together for us all.

Looks great John! You've got some knees of steel man... I'd be a cripple for a week after what you did.

The floor came out really nice John!

Great result John, nice work!

My knees would be killing me after half that floor. I laid a laminate floor, no experience, took 2 days. After the first day I had no knees. YOU'RE SUPER HUMAN!

Unique techniques. Thank you for posting. Another great video.

I'm impressed, it turned out really well!

Pretty frickin' nice for plywood! Great job.

Thank you fr being a perfectionist, it helps me know what mistakes I would have made and avoid them but I think you might be to hard on your self because that floor looks gorgeous!!!

I've looked at several DIY plywood floors and yours is the first one I would consider doing. I think properly chamfering the plywood is one of the most overlooked steps in other videos I've seen. And gluing it down with a proper adhesive, as opposed to only relying on brad nails is likewise critical. The only negative I saw was how blotchy the stain was along the edges. But I thought you had a good explanation on why it happened (the heated floors) and how to avoid that (do it on a cool floor) in the future.

Your very detail oriented guy and I got all my answers ,excellent job

Best woodworker , Best result ;-) I'm always learn from you

Wow! Spectacular flooring!

I'm going to be moving into a new house this year. I would love to try this out. Looks really nice.

THAT IS A VERY SWEET WAY TO DO A LOOK LIKE HARDWOOD FLOOR...GREAT JOB I REALLY ENJOYED YOUR VIDEOS ...AND IT IS CHEAPER THEN BUYING HARDWOOD...AWESOME JOB

Not bad at all for a plywood floor. Great stuff John, thumbs up.

Wow, that turned out better than I thought it would. I've seen some poor jobs of people using plywood for flooring. You can't even tell by looking at it, that it's plywood. Looks amazing!

Looks great! Really enjoy your videos.

what a great job that floor looks amazing

We had plywood floors laid about 9 years ago in my living room and though they have plenty of dog scratches and a few dents I haven’t filled from random chairs and what ever else they are still my favorite floors in the house. I don’t think he glued ours he just nailed them down. They really could use a freshen up of since we have never resealed them but I cant imagine how hard that would be to accomplish these days with 3 dogs and always some kind of fur floating around. I’m still very impressed at how well they have held up in 9 almost years and wish I had them in many other places. We did not fill our nail holes in but I like the look. He also did a small gap.

"Thumbs UP"... Love this video Great Teacher BEAUTIFUL FLOORS

The floor looks great. I have thought of using plywood for my floors as well. Glad to see that it turned out so well for you. Curious about the system that you used for your in-floor-heating system. Something that I am considering as well. Thanks for all the great content. I get lots of great ideas from channels like yours.

Looks great, John. I'm considering putting hardwood floor in my daughter's room and this just might be an option for me. Looks good and cost savings.

Great job, looks wonderful

Absolutely beautiful. Great job.

such a creative idea, I have not heard of anyone doing this before

That looks awesome. Nice work

That looks great, my friend!

Looks great! Thanks for the video.

Plywood and it looks fantastic..brilliant!

Fantastic looking floor John

I saw a big debate on facebook the other day and all the "experts" were saying you can't make a floor with plywood. I've got one made of 1/4" birch that shows no wear after five years. Looks like yours will last a lifetime! Looks awesome!

nice job love the colour

That looks awesome!

I installed 5'x5' plywood squares as part of my sprung dance floor living room. Love the way the plywood looks. Wish I could have found some one sided baltic birch for cheaper, but oh well.

awsome work john

Unbelievable results man, looks great!

You would never know it was plywood. Great job .

I've never seen so good of a job of staining plywood ever. There is very little blotching and looks like a very expensive hardwood.. Great job.

Hey John! Great idea diluting the Polyshades like that. I used it straight on an unfinished door and it turned out blotchy and horrible, even with the pre-stain conditioner. I wish I'd thought of this!

thank u so much for teaching us about the floor. my home was flooded a year ago and still we have no floors, walls, furniture, kitchen appliances and the works. We already spend 56K in fixing the roof (damaged by a large tree branch), doing the whole electrical of the house (auch...so expensive), changing the plumbing of the whole house, rent of the apartment, mortgage, remediation for the black mold, three loads of trash from the house and puff...all the money was gone..credit cards to the roof and we are not even started the inside of the house...so i am on the process of figuring out what is the best and cheapest ways to fix the house and i figure that it will take at least 6 years to finish...nice right... well...i will keep watching ur videos...thank you again.

Wow! I love it! Now I need to go buy a house to do this on.

Very cool John. I've always wondering how you did this when I saw your walk through of you last house.

Well done looks great

As a professional woodworker I favour a 2 pack waterbased lacquer. No fumes, wash out under the tap, and depending of weather humidity etc it can be recoated swiftly allowing 2/3/4 coats in a day.

Thumbs up man. Good work!

That looks pretty damn good!

Looks really nice!

That came out really great John.

wow. I am impressed great idea and a money saver to.

If the pipes were running in the opposite direction to the flooring it would be easier to not nail them....... I've been watching your woodworking vids for a long time and just discovered this channel. Keep up the good work John

fantastic idea!

Thanks for posting this. I'm thinking about doing this in my house as well, so this is a great resource! One quick question: What exactly do you mean by "chamfering" the corners and what is the purpose?

Gorgeous !

I've been doing a lot of research on how to do this, hands down the best tutorial so far! Great job! Could you tell me where you got your ply from, and what it is called?

Great looking floor

looks really nice.... different..👍👍

I went to an in-laws house and he had done this but with full sheets. It looked pretty good but was way too shiny. I never thought of actually stripping up the plywood but hell it makes perfect sense after seeing it. My shop is in my house and the floor is a 20x20 slab with peel and stick on it. I think I'm going to give this a try.

Bravo John! I think some of the joints could be a bit tighter. But it's not awful.

That's amazing! 😊

this was so way helpful!!!

That floor looks amazing, especially when you consider its humble beginnings as cheap plywood.

looks great.

I think that looks great.

Hi there, You’ve made a wonderfully detailed video here, and have done a wonderful job on the floor. I’m considering, very seriously putting in a floor like this...Now that a couple of years have passed, is there anything that you would have changed and do you still love your floor...Thanks for any advice and for giving me a little of your time...Cathy🌸

Very nice thanks for sharing

Nice floor John---

If I were to walk into that room not knowing what you did, I would think it was expensive hardwood flooring! Looks great! Ton of hard work and knee damage, but underfloor heating and wood layment with beautiful finish should make you proud (and warm).

I know you mentioned some lessons learned at the end there but it looks great on camera man.

That looks great, I want to do that on my floor with out moving the rug. Can it be done?

That looks great, and nobody can call you 'work-shy'

Mr Heisz, may I suggest that you have a look at the newer construction glues that are MS-Polymer based rather than PU. They have a number of advantages over PU, the often cited advantage of being very quick to get an initial grip, almost no shrinkage and depending on the version they can be very quick to set. They got great adhesion to pretty much all materials except the fat plastics and they are stronger than previous construction adhesives, including PU based glues. For solid wood glued to solid wood PVA glues are hard to beat and they have come out on top in every test I've seen, for other mixed materials slow setting epoxy is usually the strongest, but the overall good properties of MS-Polymer based glues makes them a very good fit mixed construction work.

Amazing job, John. At first I assumed you would use full sheets and score them to look like planks. Do you think that would work or would the grain clearly show as distinct rectangles across the floor? Might be a good quick and dirty option for a mudroom or shop floor. Thanks for the videos.

Hi, just a quick question. I saw you answered it in the comments, but a comment suggested checking for moisture level if on the ground floor. Would you still need the sub floor if you are doing this on the upstairs of a house whose concrete floor is about 4 years old? If you need the subfloor, do you still need the moisture barrier?

that's awesome!

like the color of the stain.. nice job

Does anyone know if I could install these on a concrete slab (slightly above grade). Would I be safe if I applied a sealer to the slab, then used an adhesive applied with a toothed trowel to adhere the plywood strips directly to the concrete? Moisture concerns me, but really want to try this floor out.

I absolutely LOVE IT! one question, though...would it be possible to pre finish the already cut flooring? just the first layer of blended poly/stain you used? this would make it much easier to do off saw horses and I cant think of how it would hurt anything when cutting them to actually lay and nail the floor? I wouldn't think going back to fill the nail holes would make that big of a deal in the final finish. any thoughts?

I want to do this as well to our home. Do have questions. Currently have 3/4" sturdifloor down. Do I need to put a 1/2" subfloor down, for an1 1/4" total floor thickness as stated by others channels, before the plywood or would the 3/4" ply be enough?

The blochiness would look kinda cool if you did the stain board by board instead of two at a time. But that looks awesome! Now I know what you've been doing the last month!

great job i done a job similar to this with 1x3 basket weave pattern

That's an awesome idea, where can I see video of how you did in floor heating.