Old-Growth Pine Floors
Every time you open a door in an older home renovation – you are never quite sure what you will find. As is often the case, we found more problems than we had initially bargained for – but there was one hidden treasure we did uncover during our demolition and assessment of our circa 1905 house.
Most recently we were unsuccessful in our attempts to remove the mauve vinyl wallcovering that the previous owners had used on most of the walls of our 3000 SF house. And the solution of simply covering all these walls with ¼” sheetrock panels was a huge blow to our budget. Now it was time to rescue OR replace whatever lay hidden underneath the wall to wall mauve commercial carpeting that dominated most of the building.
However there was a nice surprise in store for us! After ripping up the carpet we found not one, but two layers of hardboard (also called high-density fiberboard – HDF) commonly used as an underlayment in older renovations. Under that we found hidden treasure – the original 3” plank, old-growth yellow pine floors!
Pine would not have been my first choice – however old-growth pine is MUCH harder and stronger than its modern counterpart. They needed to be refinished, of course, but they were definitely salvageable! YAY! There was much celebrating after this discovery!
Hardwood Demo
Stairs after demo.
Unfortunately whoever had installed the hardboard under the wall to wall carpet had used what seemed like 50 nails per square foot – a little overzealous and a bear to remove – but in the end they did us a huge favor in that it really helped protect the floors below.
When we uncovered the beautiful original pine floors throughout the first floor – bedrooms – and even the attic – we assumed that the stairs and hallways would have offered the same luxury. Unfortunately this was not the case! The stair treads were in terrible shape, perforated with what seemed like thousands of staples. The upstairs hallway was in the same shape. With our budget already bursting at the seams I had to make the decision that we would carpet the stairs and the hallway areas. (Another blog shows the awesome carpet I selected and why it has worked so well!)
Plaster on Pine
Pine floor threshold.
The sheet vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms was now ripped up and we knew we wanted to replace that with porcelain tile. For some strange reason the old-growth pine floors did not continue into the front foyer, so I had to decide whether to install new wood flooring – or something else. My goal was to pay homage to the age of the home –UP TO A POINT that was PRACTICAL – another blog topic for sure!
With those decisions made - we moved on to the ceilings which were covered with acoustic ceiling tiles – 3000 SF of them! But that’s a blog for another day!