In the space of five days, Papa (with some help from Uncle Petka) put down the front room floor. It is about 300sqft of 3/4" red-oak face plywood, cut into 2'-wide strips, with a lap joint on each edge. It is laid staggered like floorboards, so the edges don't line up everywhere (my biggest beef with most DIY-plywood floors). The worst part is the transition from the built-up wood subfloor that fills the old sunken living room to the concrete on the slab - the concrete dipped at the curb into the sunken area, and the height of the subfloor was not perfect along the funny bend.
But - it looks good. It sounds like a music hall (over the subfloor) and walks just right. We aim to paint it with chalk paint and then Varathane over top. It makes me wince to paint the red oak, but I bought it for hardness, so it will do that job as well under paint as exposed. All told, I expect this to be about $2.50/sqft, which is better than anything manufactured that is of the quality I want (which started at about $5/sqft). It will, after all, be the music room, and it needs to complement the harp and the piano well. I'll take some photos sometime, but my Republic Defy XT camera is really disappointing, as a general rule.
