You've been very patient. After weeks of waiting, my new old floors are complete. Welcome.
This is the story of an old house with old floors that do not match. And that's O.K.
After weeks of ripping up floor boards, crying, repairing and repatching I finally have the floors I wanted. And yes, I am very glad I ripped up each and every layer until I got to the last layer even if it meant a lot of work, some reinforcing of the floors and going to bed every night worried a disrupted centipede was going to crawl in my ear.
All of it was worth it to get to the original layer of flooring in my 1840 cottage. Imagine my surprise when I realized after the floors were sanded that - my foyer floors aren't the original floors.
Yep.
After all that. Don't get me wrong. The foyer floors I was so conflicted over revealing are olddddd floors. They're secured with square nails which means they were laid in 1890 or earlier.
They just aren't as old as the floors in my living room.
The wood planks in my living room are a different colour (darker meaning they're older) and wider. They're also secured with square nails. Who knows how or why these foyer floors ended up in here 50 years after the living room was laid. I can tell you I'd love to know.
It's very upsetting the people living here didn't have the foresight to develop the Internet, learn coding and start a website documenting everything at the time.
The replacement boards I got from an antique show to patch my little hallway are darker still. They're hemlock which tends to have less orange and yellow tones. The boards are probably even older than the living room boards. The hemlock came from the sides of a barn that was torn down in Ontario.
After everything was done and I was taking a few pictures to send to family I noticed something. I didn't notice it in real life, I noticed it in a photo. Looking through them I stopped at a picture I had taken of the foyer from my front door.
My floor. Had its eye on me.
As soon as you walk in the front door there is a knot in the wood that looks exactly like an eye staring at you. It doesn't sort of look like an eye, it isn't an optical illusion. It is an eye. There's even a light fleck where the iris is that looks like a highlight. No matter what angle you look at it from, there it is. Even looking at it from the side, you can see it's an eye.
So yes. It gives side eye.
I told a friend about my wooden eye and she asked right away if it looked like an evil eye or a kind eye. I think if I had to pick I'd say it's a kind eye keeping watch over me and my house.
I'm so glad I removed all of those cover up floors to reveal this. Now that it's all done I can't imagine what my hesitation was. I'm sure the eye thinks the same thing.
Sometimes you have to peel back the layers in order to see things clearly.
I still have a little bit of work to do with heat registers and such, but for all intents and purposes the floor is done. Which is good timing, because at this point ... so am I. Photos of the rooms filled back up with furniture coming soon.
Now. Onto the dining room floor.
Have a good weekend. And by good weekend I mean don't go ripping up your floors.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
Eileen
Congratulations! They look fab. You deserve a weekend of rest (you are getting a weekend of rest, right?)
And perhaps a giggle over my home repair ooopsie. Had to clear out bedroom and dining room for plaster repairs. Since my house is tiny things were being stuffed in bags and boxes and shoved into the other rooms willy-nilly. There was also a bit of purging with items going to thrift store....Apparently one of the bags that went to the thrift store contained ALL. MY. UNDERWEAR. All of it except what I had on that day.
This will add a bit to the repair total.
Karen
LOL!!!! I'd love to see the people in the thrift store as they open a big bag of underwear. ~ karen!
Jan in Waterdown
Heck I'd go and get it back from them but then I'm thrifty aka cheap and have no shame. Reminds me of the time I stayed for a week in a downtown Toronto hotel for work and accidentaly left all my underwear behind. They very kindly mailed it to me in a Triscuits cracker box.
Gerald Dlubala
Wow! What a transformation, they are beautiful. Thanks for taking us along on your adventure, haha.
Seriously, they turned out so cool.
Karen
Thanks Gerald. They're not exactly how I pictured them but they're exactly right. ~ karen!
William
Well done! Looks marvelous!
Do you plan to chink between each board? You
If not, will there be difficulties w/ air seeping? I’ve never been in an OLD house.....
Karen
Hi William. The boards will be staying as is. All the tongue and grooves are together and where they've broken or have a gap for some reason I've patched them with plywood underneath from the basement. So hopefully they'll be O.K. I won't be filling them though. If anything I'll use rope in the cracks. ~ karen!
Anne from Raleigh
Beautiful floors! And the eye is kind but knotty (probably like the owner ; )
Katie C.
Beautiful!!! I'm glad you decided to rip up all the floors!
Our plans this weekend are to rip up the carpeting in our bedrooms and replace it with bamboo. Unfortunately, we will only find 1950s concrete slab under ours. :(
Karen
Good luck! Get ready to start removing carpet nails and staples, lol. A huge pain, but weirdly gratifying. ~ karen!
Mary W
You will be happy in this house for as long as you live in it - happy written all over it's face! I really like how the cracks between planks show up rich and dark - I've never noticed that before and I do notice wood floors. Is that a Canadian thing, or northern thing, or trick of the lens thing, or have I just overlooked something really cool before? If you took up that one shorter 'eyed' board and had a plywood making company slice off a skinny top layer, you could turn 'her' over and lay the new piece next the other for a fuller face. Then again I love the one eye, it matches the one eyed happy face just above. I'm really glad you released the happy under all those years and your house seems relieved, also. I LOVE the slightly different shades as they tell a story as plain vanilla and perfect floors never can do! Seems you were meant for this home (not house).
Karen
Those dark cracks are called something but I can't remember what it is. It comes with authentically old flooring. Partly it's the shadow of the wide tongue and groove space but also from age. :) ~ karen!
Ramona
I adore reading your work! Love the eye! It’s all I can do to vacuum our rug, but I do look forward to reading of your adventures😊 XOXOX
Karen
Oh, I'd WAY rather rip out floors and refinish them than vacuum them, lol. ~ karen!
JackieVB
The board to the left of the eye is half a smiley face. All good signs that the house approves of the floors as well. Very nice!
Mary W
I saw that before I saw the eye - it sure is a happy floor!
Jen
It not only looks like an eye, it looks like an eye with full makeup! It looks like how I try to get my mascara to look.
Rosey
Karen, look closely, the eye has eylashes!....yea...victory!!!
Lez
Hopefully not the magnetic ones that Karen tried in one of her posts! Hehe!
Karen, what did you use to seal them eventually, to not make them yellow/orange?
judy
Wowzer! I like the eye, although my impression is she is a little bit sad for a lost love or perhaps she feels sorry for her buddy country to her south. Sob. The effect really changes your home to an earlier time. I didn't realize what a give away narrow oak floors are to a much earlier era. I can't button my lip-I have to say I watched the occupant of our White House,when told of the gruesome obscene slaughter of a Journalist (permanent resident of the U.S.) seem oblivious to the crime and really really fixated on money and arms sales. Just what our World needs,not brotherly love or concern. No Siree we need more ways to kill humans. I think we have arrived at Idiocracy. I hope our midterm elections can put a brake on this insanity.
Nicole
It's definitely a kind eye - the kind you want to run away from!! JK!! It's a beautiful eye just like your floors.
Katie C
And, sometimes you have to peel back the layers in order for them to see YOU clearly. (And, way to go, sister!)
jaine kunst
They look beautifully old!! Well done.
Anna Lee
The darker color doesn't necessarily mean they're older - just that they've been exposed to the light longer, which makes sense since the other floorboards have been covered up for a loooooooong time. I had a similar difference in color when we pulled up four layers of floor in my kitchen, which revealed the original 100 year old pine floors that were identical to those in the rest of the first floor - except for the color. Of course, in your case the square nails and different size might indicate a different age :-)
Jura
Looking fabulous. Love the way they turned out, you must be happy. I can’t wait to see what you do with the heat registers. My biggest pet peeve is the sad selection of heat registers available.
Barbara Kemp
My husband, the King and I, had a 1939 cape cod in Ohio years ago. After much discussion and estimates we had our oak floors refinished. Never did we regret the expense and then the easy care that followed. Many in our neighborhood of 1920 and 1930's homes had their floors refinished by the same brothers. Skilled and experienced these men made our homes beautiful again.
Jody
Stunning!
Shawna In Charleston
A spirit from the barn has now come to share your home! Cool. Congrats on a job well done! Hope you can relax and enjoy your floors now. The spirit is keeping an eye on you. Don't make her angry!!!
Kari in Dallas
Not enough ❤️S to show how much I love this. Well done!
Karen
Hey Kari! Thanks. Even since this photo they've relaxed somehow. I really love them. ~ karen!