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.
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Leslie Barnard
Great job karen! And the real job was being brave enough to go forward with the almost-original floors! My bedroom ceiling is knotty pine and I so want to bleach and/or whitewash them! A lot of the knots look more like vaginas than eyes, unfortunately. Must be the way the boards were cut? Anyway, what did you end up using to finish them? Polyurethane? It didn't seem to turn the wood yellow at all!
Cussot
Too bad the owners didn't write a diary (and hide it between the floor layers). Have you hidden stuff in the house? For instance, I removed a door and hid a note in the doorknob tongue hole (yeah, not the technical term) along with a dime before I filled over it.
The floors are beautiful. Such a lovely soft sheen.
Idaho Girl
I've had a recurring thought all week--that I couldn't wait to see how the floors turned out. I don't know if this is because I always want to see a mystery solved or if I just need to get a life...
I can imagine in 100 years (after someone(s) has again covered those beautiful floors up with carpet or fake wood flooring) that another as intrepid will walk in your footsteps and tear back down to those original floors again and enjoy the discovery as much as you. Although they will probably be puzzled as to why the boards don't match where you patched in, so you'll be leaving your own personal mystery as part of the floor legacy :).
Karen, I admire the way you go full steam ahead with your vision, emphasize the positive and don't let any regrets take over a project! Can't wait to see what fun you're going to get up to next...
Sarah McDonnell
The floor is full of eyes! Most of them look like Cynthia Markert's flapper prints! http://www.cynthiamarkert.com/Missing_Works.html
Lynn
Love the colour of your new old floors. If I had to guess why the foyer boards are different it would be ( they originals had been damaged somehow). An instead of just doing a patch job they did the full foyer.
It is funny how sometimes it takes a picture for us to actually see what is in front of us . Perhaps it’s because when we look at a picture we are more focused. I love the fact that you found your eye it’s beautiful.
Have a well earned peaceful weekend Karen.
Gail
There is something really beautiful about returning to the original floors. I guess it is the honesty and the stories these floors could tell. They show their age and individuality and are not afraid to do so. They aren't engineered or like the neighbor's floors. They are unique to the house and the times in which it was built. You have lovingly restored them and now have a great foundation to build on in your new décor!
Jadzia Graham
What a great work you do with such persistence & patience.Floors look fantastic!Love the EYE!
Madeline
Good job Karen. Ancient Romans believed in household gods who looked after the family. Yours is just a little more visible.
Jane G Odum
It looks like an egyptian eye, the eye of Ra, that is said to symbolize protection. It's fascinating.
Mary Ann Conner
At least it doesn’t look like a centipede🤣. Kudos to you on such a great job. Love following your blog from Pemaquid, Maine
Alena
The floors are fabuluous! Congrats on a job well done.
I love the eye. Personally, I think it's there to peak under your skirt when you walk over that section (wearing a skirt). So I think when you wear a skirt you should skip the undies.
To see if this induces any reaction from the eye.
Maybe it will wink at you.
Grammy
Stunning floors. And a kind eye watching over you. Perfect.
Thanks for explaining about the tongues and grooves being interlocked -- I've been trying to figure out how you expected to not have centipedes (or any other crawly pests) coming up from the basement.
Sabina
Bravo! They look fabulous! When my father *gasp* ripped out two pantries with wainscoting and gorgeous glass door cupboards to make our kitchen larger he covered the walls with real pecan wood paneling (it was 1969 after all). It had character. We spent a lot of time looking at all the faces the knots provided, even making up stories about them, they were really cool. My daughter and I went to the most recent open house the family that bought our house was having because they were moving on. Did I gasp up there ^? Well DOUBLE GASP AND GET THE RESPIRATOR - they painted it white! Now I name the faces in my wooden fence in the yard...nothing like real wood with character ;)
Mia
I can not see any evil in that eye--only a mere hint of amusement.
Robert
What if the reason the floors were covered in the first place was that eye and the smile?
Very well done job as always 😊
linda in Illinois
so beautiful. !! I knew they would be awesome ... the floors are perfect.
Heather
Well that’s something you will never “unsee”, but it’s a welcoming eye. Can you even imagine if it could talk about what it has seen! Floors are perfection.
Good job for hanging in there. You got guts girl. :)
Liza
Love them. Seriously. Dream floors. What did you do to refinish them? Wondering which product you decided on.
Pat
Definitely a kind eye and, I'd venture, female.
janice
I knew they would look amazing but OMG THEY LOOK AMAZEBALLS!!!