It was the pine under the dining room floor that clinched it.
I'm ripping up the floors.
There are many of you gasping at this moment, many of you saying YES!! and many more of you wondering what you should have for dinner tonight.
I have 4 rooms on my lower floor and 4 different floorings. That's a lot of different floors. It bugged me. Not a huge amount, I mean I didn't wake up in the middle of the night, throw myself on the ground and start banging my fists and crying, but it did bug me a little bit.
What bothered me the most were the pine floors in my foyer which the previous owners put down for no apparent reason other than to match the adjacent living room floors. They covered up strip maple with new, knotty pine from Home Depot thinking it would blend seamlessly with the 180 year old pine floors in the living room. It did not.
It looked like new Home Depot knotty pine floor beside 180 year old pine floors. So when I pulled up the knotty pine and found a beautiful floor underneath I was thrilled. That elation lasted for about 30 seconds before my curious started jiggling.
I wonder what's under the maple? Turns out it was same 180 year old pine that's in the living room. Now I was in trouble. But the maple looked good running into the oak of the dining room. They didn't match per say but at least all the boards were going in the same direction.
Then I found pine under my dining room floor and all hell broke loose in my brain with eyeballs flying and facial twitches twisting. After a few days of thinking about it I came to grips with who I am.
I'm Karen. And I'm curious. And I'd never be able to truly rest until I knew what the floors were like when they were brought down to their original glory. Or grossness. Regardless, I was going to have to find out.
Also I was forced into making a decision when my floor guy called me and said he'd be at my house to start work in a week. 12 hours after he called, my living room and foyer looked like this.
Which means my dining room became this ...
Everything from the two front rooms got moved into my dining room so I could rip up the foyer floors, scrape the filler out of the living room floor cracks and have everything ready for the sander on Monday.
The floor sanders will have to do the job in 2 stages. The first two rooms, and then the dining room because there is literally nowhere to put all the furniture to do all the rooms at once. The crack filler I'm talking about is the mixture of sawdust and glue that floor refinishers sometimes put in between large cracks in old floors. It makes everything uniform and eliminates cracks. However it also pops out in places after a season or two of contraction and expansion.
Over the years the half or even more of the crack filler will come out leaving the floors messy looking.
Without the filler the cracks are MUCH more noticeable, but also more authentic looking so I'm removing it all by hand and leaving the cracks as is once I redo the floors.
The original way of filling these cracks in floor boards was to push rope into them. When the floor contracts and expands, the rope contracts and expands with the floors. The point of the rope wasn't just aesthetics. In fact, it mostly wasn't aesthetics, it was to stop things from falling down cracks and to insulate any drafts from coming up.
Any of the filler that just pops out easily popped out itself years ago so the remaining stuff is hard to get out. I'm using whatever tools I need to get the job done. A carpet cutter, screwdrivers and in certain places my Dremel Multi-max.
For those of you who were worried about pine being too soft for flooring, it's what all of these heritage homes had. So if you love the original old features in this type of house (which I do) you embrace this pine. Also, old growth pine like the original flooring found in these houses is much harder than any pine you'd find nowadays partly because it was old slow growth pine and partly because of the age of it.
So there you have it. After weeks of thinking about it and quite frankly knowing I'd end up doing this in the end, I'm ripping my floors out. Actually, I already have. Sometimes you just need to let yourself slowly come to terms with things.
Like the fact that once I ripped up the maple floors I realized I'd need to make some repairs to the pine floor. Which meant I'd also have to rip up the pine.
K. Rip up the pine, source antique floor boards, re-support and repair the pine floors and build a new threshold from foyer to the living room. In two days.
In addition to ALL of that, and perhaps even worse - I have NO idea what I'm having for dinner.
Have a good weekend!
→Follow me on Instagram where I'll be posting more as I rip out my floors.←
Veronica
I think we all knew this was the endgame. I keep thinking about all the different levels of floors. Does this mean that previously uneven transitions will become more or less even? Also, I’d like to come by in a couple of years to dig up all the loose change that’s going to go between the boards, please.
Darla Ragland
I knew you couldn't stand it knowing those pine floors were under there! They will look great!!
Karen
Pizza of course!
Marilyn Meagher
It’s going to be beautiful.
Ann Roberts
I grew up in a house with pine flooring with large gaps between boards. Man, oh man did I hate that. The amount of dust that collected in those gaps was amazing and horrid on any allergies. And you will never have enough time to vacuum every single gap often enough to keep the dust down. Personally I would want the gaps to be refilled if at all possible.
But otherwise it is a gorgeous looking floor considering how many layers of floor went down on top of some of it.
Karen
You would NOT believe the amount of straight pins stuck in the gaps in one particular area in the living room, lol. It must have been the sewing corner for someone over the years. ~ karen!
Joyce
I have birch, cherry, maple and random width pine on our various floors. Like a crazy quilt! The house is third hand to us but only 30 years old.
I probably would not have been as brave as you.
Joyce
Lofchick
I'll make you dinner, come on over ;)
Karen
:) I know you would! K. I'll keep you on my food radar if things get ugly, lol. ~ karen!
Kari in Dallas
Now I want to know what goodies fell between the cracks over the years!
(I’m a rip it up down to the original kind of girl)
Sandi Remedios
I am excited for you. I can't wait to see the results!
Grammy
I figured you would do this. Because it’s what you do, and because it’s the right thing. Your floors are going to be so perfect. I, too, spent the day engulfed in the ugly drama of American politics today. Thank you for the palate cleanser — now I’m in the right frame of mind to enjoy eating lunch with my grandson tomorrow at Grandparents Day at his school.
I look forward to seeing the finished floors.
MrsChrisSA
You are most certainly one brave sassy lady! I admire that!
Linda
Thank you for a diversion from a miserable day here in the US. Tough times ahead.
Sandi
You woke up this morning yes???? Then you should be grateful for being here for our day.
Ian Anderson
100% the right decision. They are after all the original floors, so are automatically historically and aesthetically correct for the home. Anything else is just a poor attempt at modernisation.
Poor you trying to get the filler out! Ironic isn't it, I mean the damn stuff either falls out or needs dynamite huh?
I'm lucky, I keep an old blade for my plunge saw (best tool on the the planet, nay, the universe!) just for that very job. 2mm wide blade and it cuts exactly where the edge of the guide rail is so it's quick to position over the joints etc.
Suzanne LH
So here’s a toast to old floors! Clink
Wish that’s what’s under my 100+ year old floors. But it’s not...
Ah well.
You go, woman, and enjoy the results.
Sandi
After a long emotionally exhausting day of being far too exposed to American political drama I will fully admit I was elated to see you had made a decision. My gut reaction to finding out your news was so strong I seriously wondered what was wrong with me. 😉 Thanks for the respite AND the great floor news. 🙏🏻
Karen
:) ~ karen!
hatepolitics
Please, just when I thought I could have a little escape....
TucsonPatty
It will be beautiful and worth it and I cannot wait to see it all. I have two weird thresholds from wood to concrete covered with acrylic paint finished to look like 18 inch tiles so there is no grout and no scrubbing of grout. Had a lot of stubbed toes before I figured out how to fix the transitions. Good luck.
Melissa
Oh! I pulled stuff out of the cracks between my old floor boards, too. Screwdriver worked the best, sometimes an exacto knife. Incredibly tedious but worth it.
Kipper
I’m wondering if an iron set at low steam or a heat gun could possibly loosen the glue/h2o filler more easily and not damage the wood. You are amazing!
Carolyn Schneider
What are you doing with the wood from the floors you ripped out? New chicken coop?
Lois M Baron
You remain an awe-inspiring force of nature.