On 23 Jan 2006 00:42:56 -0800, wrote:

I'm planning to sand the floorboards in our dining room but some have
been damaged during central heating installation.
If I get some old floorboards from the reclamation yard will they be a
reasonable colour match when sanded or should I try and take some up
from another room which will be carpeted (this is a bit of a pain as
they are nailed solidly and get damaged when lifting)?
I'm not sure yet whether to oil/wax/varnish the sanded floorboards.

The best way to match is to use boards from the same house.

If you run a circular saw down the toungs and accross the boards at
the ends they wont be difficult to lift. If you do 2 boards at a time
then you save one of the boards toungs ( the toung in the middle of
the 2 boards ). When you replace say 3 damaged boards you will find
you need 3 1/4 boards to make it a tight fit. Fill the old redundant
nail holes with splinter size off cuts hammerd in with some PVA. Use
counter sunk screws on any boards you might need to lift in the
future. I'd use varnish, recently I used Acrylic but I believe there
is a binary varnish that sets harder, Rustins or something like that.