2.5" Maple

One of the things that we learned during our interview with Mr. Schmidt was that our house had wood floors and only wood floors all throughout - both levels. We had suspected that the second floor had wood floors because we could see them in the closet. And the closet floors are in beautiful condition. We have subsequently removed the vinyl from the back entrance; the laminate flooring from the living room, dining room and kitchen; and the carpeting from the entire upstairs as well as the bedroom located on the first floor. To our amazement, all of the wood flooring consists of 2.5" maple tongue and groove boards. This was surprising because in the 1920s it was common to have maple on the first floor, where everyone could see it, and pine planks on the second. This is good news as it supports our speculation that this house was the "advertisement" or showplace for the mason that built it. The bad news is that the wood floors are in various conditions and require differing degrees of work to restore, as I will detail below:

• Downstairs bedroom: has been sanded with a belt sander prior to someone giving up. Over the beautiful blond board we found paint and drywall compound splatters and a bunch of alphabetical stickers (for our assemble-yourself kitchen cabinets).

• The living room: appears to have had the varnish stripped (or it wore completely off) leaving behind a grayish brown looking wood.

• The dining room: must have had a series of rugs placed on the floor throughout its history as we have several variations of the varnish from almost completely worn off to very dark and aged.

• The kitchen: is a nightmare! There is no other way to describe it. Fortunately, my dear husband and I are able to visualize the potential and we have not been disappointed. When we first removed the laminate flooring, we discovered a floor that was entirely covered with a black, smelly, rubber adhesive. Can you believe that someone actually put down vinyl flooring on a wood floor? It simply boggles our mind.



Black Rubber Adhesive Covering the Wood



Beautiful Flooring After Hours of Work



• The back entrance: was covered with vinyl when we purchased the home. We had peeled a little bit of it off in an inconspicuous area and discovered new subfloor plywood. This was several months ago and so we simply left it alone. However, while I was gone for the annual UPCI Ladies' Retreat, my husband decided to explore a little more. He found that underneath the vinyl, someone had screwed (with hundreds of drywall screws) a new subfloor on top of the original maple. Unfortunately, we are not able to see how badly damaged the wood may be as it too is covered with the same black gunk as the kitchen.
• The upstairs hallway: was in fairly good condition, although you can see a very defined crack right down the middle where the boards have separated as the house settled. We have been told that the crack could be filled with cork but we are thinking about leaving it as is. Maybe as we refinish the floors, the sealant will help with the cracking.

• The boys bedroom: initially looked like it could just be buffed and polished, it looked so good. And then we discovered where someone must have tripped over a paint bucket. Uhh...mopping and slight scrubbing have done nothing to remove it.

• The girls room: must have been covered with some type of flooring prior to the carpeting. It has some residual adhesive on it, but it is yellow and hard opposed to the rubbery black adhesive downstairs in the kitchen.

• The master bedroom: was also carpeted in its past. We have been told that the thick "film" (for lack of a better description) that is on the floor is the remnant of the rubber backing on the carpet that was glued to the wood floor. We can even read the manufacturer of the carpeting as the name has transposed itself into the adhesive. Sigh.... 

The process of working on the floors has been mostly one of experimentation. Fortunately, we were blessed with a Porter + Cable palm sander several years ago. I have been using that tool to sand the bedroom floor on the first floor. What a dusty job! It can be quite meditative though, as I tune out the sound of the sander and the vibration in my hand. I have plenty of time to think about things and to pray for everyone on my list!

When we removed the laminate from the kitchen floor and saw the black adhesive, we were not sure what to do, at first. I must confess that we were quite depressed at the sight. After a quick search on Google (don't you just love Google?), we found that the best way to remove the adhesive was by using heat. First, we tried a rag soaked in almost boiling water. It did soften the glue a little so that it could be scraped, but we were only able to remove a very small area. It would take years to do the whole floor using that method!

While sitting there looking at the floor, I remembered that I own an embossing gun...one of those special heat guns that you use when embossing handmade cards. It took a little bit of searching but I finally found it. Wow! Did that really work. We had to point the hot air on the adhesive for about 10 seconds and then it scraped right up. Needless to say, we are not using the embossing gun on the whole floor! My wonderful husband drove quickly to the Fleet Farm located one town over and purchased a Wagner Heat Gun right before they closed. What a wonderful tool it is! With this magnificent gun, we were able to scrape a 10 foot by 8 foot area in about 12 hours (remember the embossing gun? it took an hour to do a 6 inch square!).

Some friends of ours that restored the wood floors in their home have recommended that we use Coke. Our store was out of Coke, so I picked up a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi. We are going to try using it in the Master Bedroom since the heat gun is not working as well on the old carpeting adhesive. Instead of making it easy to scrape off, it turns it to a gluey mess that just sticks to the scraper!

We are also in the process of obtaining some quotes to have the floors professionally finished. We were surprised at how expensive it could be. Our first quote came in at $6,000 to do all the floors! And that is not including staining. I am nervous about doing it ourselves, not to mention that it could take a really long time. We are going to see about getting a revised quote once we have all the floors cleaned up. Hopefully, we will be able to get it done for less. Regardless of the approach we ultimately take, the floors are going to be absolutely beautiful when finished!