Our upstairs floors were full of quirks. The wood boards were badly painted, full of needles, and had newspaper stuck to them, as I wrote about here. The downstairs floors gave us a lot more grief, though, and still require more hard work! When we bought the house, we hoped the carpets concealed old fashioned, rustic wood floors. The trouble began when our contractor cut the back door. He found a rotten sill, which meant a LOT more work than planned during this first renovation. Chris and some friends dug a deep trench along the back of the house (no small feat!), and the sill was replaced.
We needed to finish the work soon so we could move in, but got more bad news: the floors in the laundry room and bathroom needed to be replaced as well. Soon those rooms looked like this:
We needed to finish the work soon so we could move in, but got more bad news: the floors in the laundry room and bathroom needed to be replaced as well. Soon those rooms looked like this:
The OTHER rooms needed the work, not these ones! Didn't the inspector say they were fine?! The wall between the rooms was removed, then the floors torn up and everything got new sheetrock. Our bathtub was placed in the front yard so we could use it again, but everything else went into the dumpster. (The bathtub turned into another crazy story for another day.)
We grumbled and complained about more work, more expense, more time before we could move in. Everyone told us (again) that renovations never go as planned. I thought of Mr. Blandings and reminded myself that this was only a small setback. We had nice, new floors and walls now!
We grumbled and complained about more work, more expense, more time before we could move in. Everyone told us (again) that renovations never go as planned. I thought of Mr. Blandings and reminded myself that this was only a small setback. We had nice, new floors and walls now!
We moved on to the other rooms. Chris spent long, long hours chiseling the subfloors off the living room and dining room floors. He worked at a high school 30 minutes from the new house, so after work he hurried to work on the floors and then drove 30 minutes home. The schedule was grueling for both of us, since I was caring for a new baby and two toddlers while trying to pack our apartment. We barely saw each other, and had long ago passed what we thought were the limits of exhaustion.
Finally, the original floors saw daylight again! I loved those floors. People had walked on them 130 years ago! Babies took their first steps here, just as Madelyn would. Chris doesn't possess the rosy-hued glasses I wear, so he called them just plain old. Not beautiful and full of character, but old floors that could use some refinishing. We knew that sanding them would put toxic lead dust into the air, where our babies would breathe it in, so we decided against that. We'd be careful and just seal them.
The floors drank in our water-based polyurethane twice before Chris tried an oil-based poly. That one worked. The floors were finished in almost every room! Their old wooden boards seemed perfect for our family. We never had to worry about scratching them. The kids danced in tap shoes and hit them with toy hammers.
The floors drank in our water-based polyurethane twice before Chris tried an oil-based poly. That one worked. The floors were finished in almost every room! Their old wooden boards seemed perfect for our family. We never had to worry about scratching them. The kids danced in tap shoes and hit them with toy hammers.
Soon after we moved in, Chris began ripping up the subfloor in the kitchen. This couldn't be put off any longer, because our kids kept getting the plywood subfloors wet, no matter how closely I watched them. The subfloor had dents from sippy cup leaks and drool. Besides that, I cringed every time our 6-month-old's hands touched these floors. Another setback presented itself: these strange, mismatched boards covered a quarter of the room. Looking at them from the basement, Chris realized that someone had merely filled in a hole with old pieces of boxes and scrap wood. More work! My dad and Chris spent a Saturday replacing them with real floorboards that would hold weight. My job that day was keeping our very young kids away from the gaping hole in the floor. The hole cut us off from the kitchen, laundry room and bathroom, so we had to go outside and come in the front door to access that side of the house. It was a very cold November day, which made me see the benefit of not having any potty trained children. For months I'd been trying with no avail to train Asher, but that day I felt grateful that I didn't have to run outside and around the house for potty breaks!
One of the boards in the floor was part of an old shipping box from someone named A. Graham. We mounted it in the kitchen.
In the midst of this hectic day, an elderly couple knocked on the door. The man said that he lived here as a child. His grandmother had lived in the upstairs of the apartment, and his great-grandmother in the downstairs. He came to show his wife this old home, and we were excited to show him. But there was a hole in the floor that day! I asked them to come around to the other door so they could see the rest of the house, but they stared at the hole for a few moments and declined. I assured them that this was the only day we'd have a hole in the floor, so if they were in town tomorrow we could give them a tour. They still declined, and left without telling me anything more about the house. Since we first saw this house, I often said that I wished we could meet a former resident and find out what it was like decades ago. This was my chance, but we scared him away with our hole and loud power tools! The sight of three cranky kids who were corralled in the living room probably helped drive him away, too.
The big lead abatement brought more changes to our floors. After all this painstaking work, the following autumn we had to cover them all! They were poisoning our kids. If we'd only left the subfloor on, we could have bought new floors at first. But no, we had pried up the subfloors, found the hole, polyurethaned everything...all for nothing. The company that did the abatement didn't have very nice laminate floor choices for us, but we picked one we could live with. Now those old floors are slumbering beneath the laminate, and we plan to eventually cover these floors with pine! I hope they'll be done in the next few years, so we can enjoy nice wood floors that won't poison anyone or look like fake wood.
In the midst of this hectic day, an elderly couple knocked on the door. The man said that he lived here as a child. His grandmother had lived in the upstairs of the apartment, and his great-grandmother in the downstairs. He came to show his wife this old home, and we were excited to show him. But there was a hole in the floor that day! I asked them to come around to the other door so they could see the rest of the house, but they stared at the hole for a few moments and declined. I assured them that this was the only day we'd have a hole in the floor, so if they were in town tomorrow we could give them a tour. They still declined, and left without telling me anything more about the house. Since we first saw this house, I often said that I wished we could meet a former resident and find out what it was like decades ago. This was my chance, but we scared him away with our hole and loud power tools! The sight of three cranky kids who were corralled in the living room probably helped drive him away, too.
The big lead abatement brought more changes to our floors. After all this painstaking work, the following autumn we had to cover them all! They were poisoning our kids. If we'd only left the subfloor on, we could have bought new floors at first. But no, we had pried up the subfloors, found the hole, polyurethaned everything...all for nothing. The company that did the abatement didn't have very nice laminate floor choices for us, but we picked one we could live with. Now those old floors are slumbering beneath the laminate, and we plan to eventually cover these floors with pine! I hope they'll be done in the next few years, so we can enjoy nice wood floors that won't poison anyone or look like fake wood.