The wood I used is actually sold as wall board, but is perfectly fine for flooring. It's hickory, a VERY hard wood and the boards are 1/2" thick tongue and groove. I used boards that are 3" and 4" wide in different parts of the floor, with the border being mostly 3" ones.
One of the better reasons to make a floor with this kind of pattern is that it will be less susceptible to seasonal moisture changes, since there's a mix of grain directions and the "patches" of floor with wide grain are limited. It can also look really neat, of course, but it does take a lot of work and time to do.
The finish is two coats of boiled linseed oil. I used that because this is a very low traffic area and it's easy to reapply. A better, more durable finish would be oil based polyurethane, but it's much less forgiving and harder to apply than the oil.
Some things I'd do differently if I had it to do over:
- take up the carpet. The padding feels nice to walk on, but it also makes the boards creaky when you walk on it, since they can move up and down slightly and rub against each other.
- redesign the layout so that the corners I made are not right in the corner. I think a two board border around the entire perimeter of the square room to start would have properly framed it and pushed the corner blocks away from the corners enough to make them more noticable.
- not stain the border boards. In the end with the oil rubbed on, there's not enough of a difference between the natural wood and the stained to justify the extra time and effect and expense. A better way would be to use a naturally darker wood, like walnut, for the border, but then that would be VERY expensive.
The video on my audio channel where I talk about carpet vs hardwood flooring in a treated room:
   • Is Carpet Better for the Floor in a H...  

▶️ Project plans for sale: https://ibuildit.ca/plans/
▶️Support the work I do on Locals:
https://ibuildit.locals.com/
▶️ Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=865843...
▶️ Join my Makers Mob for detailed build tutorials:
https://go.themakersmob.com/john-heis...

My "Scrap bin" channel:
   / ibuilditscrapbin  

#ibuildit
#woodworking

Website: https://ibuildit.ca/
Facebook:   / i-build-it-258048014240900  
Instagram:   / i_build_it.ca