The Nugget: DIY Geometric Wood Flooring for $80! (Vintage Revivals)

Dudes! We are overhauling a 1972 Bell Travel Trailer! Follow the entire series from the beginning here! This Nugget project is sponsored by my friends at The Home Depot.

I just need to say, that this project thus far on the Nugget has been my favorite.

The original plan for the little Nugs was to lay this gorgeous hardwood down in a herringbone pattern. Unfortunately after talking to a representative at Milstead headquarters (the company that makes the flooring) about it, I came to the conclusion that it was just not going to be a great plan. Hardwood is designed for use in a climate controlled area. Extreme temperature swings might make it behave like a 3 year old…in the checkout line at Old Navy (why do they do that to us?!) It is just not equipped to hold up under that type of stress. Spending lots of money on it just didn’t seem like a great plan.

Designing such a small space means that there can only be a few Stars. If everything tries to be center stage than the whole thing turns into a freaking circus. I really wanted the floor to be one of those star players. When I went back to Home Depot, I felt like everything else that I looked at was going to blend in too much. Granted it would be durable and very nice looking, but it wasn’t going to be something that you noticed right off the bat.

So after a heart to heart with myself about it, I decided to take it the completely opposite direction. Hand cut pine 1×4’s that cost us 2 days and $80 (for the entire floor!!). It is such a small space that doing something completely crazy like making your own floor is manageable. Is pine the most durable thing on the planet for flooring? Um, no. But I love character and with the way that we are planning on using The Nugs it is a pretty great solution. And hello, $80!!

I need to give a massive thank you to everyone on instagram that voted which pattern they loved the most. I love it when your friends confirm what your gut is already telling you.

Once I knew what pattern I wanted, it was just a matter of cutting the wood. The triangles needed to have 30 and 120 degree angles.

*One thing to note, when you are working on a miter saw, 90 degrees is 0, you subtract your angle from that. So to cut a 30 degree angle, I needed to set my saw blade at 60 degrees. Because 30 60 is 90. (The reason most people overlook this is because the most common angle is 45 and that is exactly 1/2 of 90, so you set your blade at 45.)

This sliding compound miter saw from Dewalt is the stuff dreams are made out of. My little rinky dink miter saw didn’t cut up to 60 degrees, so I borrowed this one from my bro in law. It is at the top of my Christmas list.

This project is EXTREMELY simple, its just really repetitive. (Sort of like the hexagon wall that I did in Dylan’s room)

We went to Home Depot and bought (10) 1×4’s for this project. Then we cut approximately 5 zillion triangles out of them. Jk. It was only 4 trillion.

To make all of the triangles the same I marked a line on the saw base.

Then after I made a cut I would rotate the board and line it up.

Using a 1×4 gave us the perfect sized triangles, I also tried it with a 1×6 and 1×3’s and it is pretty crazy to see just how different the sizing is with adding or taking out an inch or two.

Each triangle got a light sanding on the edges and knots to get rid of any splinters, and then it was time to start laying it down!

We prepped the floor by pulling out the carpet nails and scraping all of the paint and thinset off of the linoleum. Then we swept and vacuumed and swept and vacuumed until we were sure that it was nice and clean.

We started along the edge of the cabinets and dry fit the pieces.

You want to work in kind of a big section as opposed to fitting and nailing down each triangle on its own, that way you can make sure that everything is lined up before you commit.

Once we were happy with it, we used a finishing nailer to nail it to the floor on each corner. We used 2” finishing nails and double checked that they weren’t going all the way through the underside of the trailer. The nailer that we use and love is this one from Senco, but I have heard really great things about the Ryobi Airstrike Brad Nailer, and its about 1/2 the price.

Working on the edges wasn’t as hard as you might think. We made a template of the triangle out of paper and after lining it up, folded the paper so that we could see the exact angle that needed to be cut.

Inside the closet wasn’t horrible either, we just used the template and it worked great!

We used wood filler to fill all of the nail holes and finished it off with a few coats of satin polyacrylic.

I am completely and utterly obsessed with this floor.

It is so fun when people see it to find out what shape they see, the star? The tumbling blocks? Or the triangles?

One of the factors when it comes to working on trailers is adding weight. The total weight added for the flooring was around 40 lbs. Each pine board weighed in around 4 lbs, and we used 10!

Maybe a new floor isn’t up your DIY alley, but um…can you image this pattern on a wall or a table top?! Dreamy.

HUGE thanks to my friends at Home Depot for teaming up with me on this project for The Nugget!!