Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Wood floors!

Remember when I mentioned that the front of our rental apartment was really nice? This is a shot of one of the two front rooms, looking into the front room. Nice paint, nice details, and really gorgeous hardwood floors. They look like they were probably very recently refinished.



We love wood floors not only because they are easier on a wheelchair but because they are so gorgeous. They are the norm for floors in our area and--once you've got them--much less expensive to maintain than carpet. This apartment has two back bedrooms. One of them had an old blue carpet with an iron burn right in the middle. The other had ugly, old vinyl tile. We really wanted to replace both of these floors with hardwood but that would have put us over budget on this whole project so we were planning to install new carpet in both bedrooms.

The other day while we were up here dismantling the kitchen I idly asked if we'd looked under the carpet in the first bedroom. Eric pried up a corner of the carpet and found . . . hardwood floors! I'm not sure why we were surprised. I guess I figured that the old owners wouldn't have covered up wood floors if they had them. We then popped up one of the vinyl floor tiles in the back bedroom and found . . . more hardwood floors!

It took about ten minutes to pop up all the tiles and make a big, enormously heavy pile in one room.

But it took the better part of two days for Eric to get all the staples out of the floor in the first room. Whoever installed carpet in that room apparently had the philosophy, "If one staple is good, twenty must be really good!" We are constantly asking ourselves what the previous owners were thinking when they fixed up this house (though their many DIY shortcomings have so far not deterred us from taking on projects ourselves).



And now we have floors that look sort of like this:


Not pretty but I think they are salvageable.
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4 comments:

Lindsay said...

Exciting stuff! We had one room of our old house like that, and we ended up just tiling that room (the dining room) because each one of those zillion tacks pull a chunk of wood out with it. There would have been more putty than wood, lol.

I was just thinking of you because my husband has found the "perfect beer." We've yet to have someone taste it and not like it--and get this, it comes in a can. It is Dale's Pale Ale. It isn't easy to find (we have to drive over the border to Maryland to get it), but I think it will be some time before my husband tires of it. Have you had it?

Susan said...

I'm so flattered that you thought of me after finding the "perfect beer." I've never heard of it but, according to the website, we can get it downtown here in Newark. That's a pleasant surprise. I thought there was a city ordinance disallowing the sale of everything except Bud Light. I've been running the floor sander all day . . . I might be able to convince my husband to step out and pick some up.

I was just going to leave you a note asking if you've had good luck color matching Farrow and Ball colors in other brands? Or if you have a particular brand or store that seems to do better or worse. I was just looking at a website the other day that had groups of really good shades of each color and almost without exception my favorites were F&B. After we finish upstairs we might be in the mood for something simple like a paint job in our own apartment.

Lindsay said...

I don't know if it will be your favorite, but it seems a good "universal" beer, lol. Great for guests.

I have had great luck matching the paints at the local MAB store. "Our" guy is very good, and when he tests it on the chip, you couldn't see it if it weren't for the sheen. I'm sure it doesn't have the depth and saturation of the real deal, but the " color" is the same. We have several projects going at once, but I hope to have some things finished to post soon. We have limited ourselves to their color card just because the selection is overwhelming, and it is just liberating somehow to only have 132 choices!

Lindsay said...

Oh, and, yk, painted wood floors can be really pretty. I think if I had a couple of rooms like that and limited time and funds, I would consider just painting the floor. My husband would never let me paint "acceptable" ones, but he might let me paint ugly ones.