Ben patches hardwood floors

Let me start by saying that Ben did all of this work - I had no part other than that of the Documenteur (is that a word? It should be.) So hopefully if I describe things incorrectly, he will let me know.

Okay, so before we could refinish the floor in the Living-Kitchen/Den, we had to patch up a few holes. The POs had sawn two holes in the floor, one where they imagined an island sink would go and another where they imagined a sink would go after they gave up on the island sink. There was also a funny little square missing - not sure what for.

Here is the end result of Ben's patch of the first hole. Using some scrap wood that had somewhat-matching grain, he roughly cut it down to size using a probably-dangerous combination of our circular saw and the Sawzall. I wasn't around to witness the madness. Once he saw-whittled it down to something approximating the hole, he sanded the edges to make them round and to get the fit juuuust right. In the foreground is the little square patch. Much easier than the big round one.

For the second large patch, he had to first remove the half-assed plumbing that was there. Sawzall, baby. (He tried to include me at this point, but holding a reciprocating saw 8 inches from my face just made me worry for my modeling career, y'know? In general Ben has done the heavy lifting with the power tools because I wig out thinking about all the ways I could accidentally clutzily maim myself.)

Here's the hole that needs to be patched. Or as they say in Pittsburgh "needs patched."

Ben decides to cut it into a square to make it easier on him and the sander. He measures to make sure he'll cut evenly, then uses the Sawzall to make the hole.

He removes any leftover pieces of floor:
And sands the edges smooth.

He cuts a new piece of wood, sands its edges, and plunks it into place. Some wood glue and a rubber mallet make sure it's all the way in and secure.

There was also some making-a-brace-from-underneath action, but I missed out on that because (I believe) I was taking a nap. Which is a shame because I totally missed some sweet nail-gunnin'. Maybe someday Ben will fill us in on what he was doing.
(Hint hint! Hey Ben! Blog!)

Anyway. It's SUPER impressive how well these blend in to the refinished floors. Especially with the stain on it, you can barely notice the patches unless you're looking for them. Ben rules.