Installing a hardwood floor with large oval inlay

After slowly gathering leftover material over the course of more than a year, we finally accumulated enough to install the entire bedroom. The material includes maple, American cherry, red and white oak, in a variety of grades, and widths ranging from 2-1/4" to 6".
The real showpiece is a large oval medallion about 2' x 4' with inlays of maple, walnut, and mahogany. The medallion was made over a decade ago, but sat around unsold for years slowly becoming very warped. It was being disposed of because it was thought to be unusable, but we managed to acclimate it and flatten out most of the warping before installation.
The medallion was laid out and its shape drawn on the existing flooring, then the boards were installed rough to just inside of the oval. The boards had to be laid out and mixed in both species and widths to create an even look.
After the flooring was installed, the medallion was laid out and its outline scribed onto the floor. The bulk of the material was cut out with a Fein multimaster, leaving less than 1/8" of material to the scribed line, then the remainder was carefully removed with a straight bit on a router. Due to the irregular shape of the inlay all of this work had to be done freehand. The existing floor had layers of wax and paint that had to be ground off to ensure a good glue surface before we could set the medallion in place. The edges were nailed down, and bags of concrete set on top for a few days while the glue set.
The floor was then sanded with a 50 grit belt, first at an angle to flatten out the height difference across boards, then with the grain to minimize visible scratches. The medallion and edges were sanded with 50 grit discs on the edger. The floor was then trowel filled with putty to fill in any cracks, gaps, or nail holes (the camera cut out during this portion), then the filler is sanded off with 100 grit paper on the drum sander and the edger.
Next we fabricated and installed transition pieces at each of the doorways, hand scraped the corners, then buffed the floor to bring it to an even complexion. The medallion was sanded with even finer paper on an orbital to give it an extra polished look.
The floor was sealed with Bona IntenseSeal which brings out more richness in the wood than typical water-based finishes, then two coats of Bona Mega satin were applied on top of that. The finish was abraded between each step to ensure maximum smoothness, and the final coat was applied with a roller because I was unsatisfied with the texture the trim pad had left in the previous coats.
In total the project took about 20 hours, and because all of the wood had been acquired for free, the total material cost (nails, glue, sand paper, putty, finish) was only about $150.

[@charlesgillingham61]

I was just in that room! And I'm about to be in it again!!

[@robertbirdsell5838]

It's probably the fanciest room in the neighborhood at this point.

[@BestAccessDoors]

Fantastic work, Robert! Will you do another video like this soon?