Matai Floorboards – not all Matai is the same

Beautiful, native matai wooden flooring.  It’s all the same, right?  Not at all. When it comes to replacing or matching matai floorboards be aware that not all matai is the same, so we’ve rediscovered.

by Jel Legg

Back in the 1920’s when our bungalow was built, native matai wood was prevalent due to its availability and hard-wearing nature. As a close grained softwood, it stands the test of time when kept dry and away from the elements. It was a great flooring option for its time.  Nearly a century on, it is no surprise that from time to time it’s necessary to restore patches of floor or the occasional full length floorboard – whether it be through water damage, restoring holes were pipes once lay or flooring extensions.

We did all three: pulling out the old shower box, patching up drainage holes where old copper pipes once were, and levelling our old built-in veranda which had a sloping base for water run off.

While damage and ‘fix ups’ may seem too big to bear, the reality is that damage can be easily fixed.

Without too much of a dilemma, we ordered in matai (as you would, given we had matai throughout the house). To our horror, but only once it was delivered to our door, we discovered new matai was so light it looked striking like pine. A huge shock to the system given we were expecting the delicious, golden brown matai we’d grown to love, we sent it back and began some serious research.

It was then, after some investigation, we discovered there are three different types of matai. Yes, all from the same tree, but different parts.

• Heartwood –  is golden-yellow when freshly cut, darkening to a deep red-brown on exposure to sunlight. This is the warm, darker wood (which can even tend towards black) that comes from the centre of the tree. It is rich and old.
• Sapwood – is white (yellow-white) wood from the outside parts of the tree, the younger wood. Regardless of aging it will never darken to match heartwood.
• Colour matai – is a combination of the two. Often a dramatic colourisation will occur in the same plank of wood. Very striking in small quantities.

Above: you can see the colour matai displaying both the golden heartwood and light sapwood naturally in the same board (which has not been fully sanded – just a quick sand and wiped with damp cloth for the photo).

What we learned was when it came to matching matai flooring for an old bungalow the only solution for us was to source recycled heartwood.  New matai (even though it was apparently new heartwood matai) closely resembled sapwood in our eyes. It was so nightmarishly ‘white’ we almost cried.  It would stand out like a sore thumb looking quite alien amongst the rich, warm, original boards. We were told new heartwood matai would darken with age, but to be honest we doubted it would even come close to our 90 year old boards….and frankly weren’t prepared to wait years (or decades) to see if it would or not.

So, we ditched the new and happily welcomed in recycled, old matai.

An expensive decision? Pleasantly, no.

You may be surprised to find that recycled matai is available from around $5 per metre vs $13 per metre for new (85mm wide). Recycled matai will be exactly that. It will have nail holes, marks, wear-and-tear, and could be partially oiled or stained. Don’t be concerned. As long as the boards are straight and in good condition, any major marks can be sanded out — or if you are like us, kept to ensure those glorious storylines remain. To restore matai floorboards you may want to need to sand them and fill gaps etc as we’ve done in an earlier post: Restoring Matai Floorboards.

Handy Tip: To avoid any heartache, if you are ordering matai from a yard be sure to check what you are buying and be satisfied with the colour before getting out the cheque book. Don’t accept the salesman’s yarn if you aren’t comfortable with what is visually in front of you. Colour match from a piece of bungalow flooring off-cut from home if possible, sand a piece down if necessary to ensure you’re matching its real colour (which can be disguised under decades of dirt and layers of stain) and ask if necessary to look at fresh sawn ends of the intended wood in order to truly match colour for colour. Yes there will be variances but they should be comfortably within the same range, not a stark contrast.

Where to find your supplies? Local demolition yards will have supplies, if not, your local builder may be able to point you in the right direction. In Auckland, where bungalows and villas a commonplace, so is recycled timber.

Hope this helps!