The Historic District

Lovesickest, it's a floating laminate floor on top of the vinyl, which is on top of the original wood flooring.

The new floor looks good ! The color looks like a very harmonious match for an original wood floor.

lovesickest wrote:The new floor looks good ! The color looks like a very harmonious match for an original wood floor.

Thank you! I agonized for a long time over that choice. I think it is the best match we could get, for what it is.we ran the same floor into the kitchen, too.

So. The counter of our original built in kitchen hutch appeared to have been replaced with a Formica countertop secured with metal strips. We bought IKEA oak butcher block to replace it, which would match the rest of our counters. Surprise! Today we removed the metal strips and discovered the Formica was just a thin veneer, and the original painted wood surface was still underneath. We are sticking with the original surface, but the question is what color to paint it? Grey would be too much, it needs some contrast. White would look funny with the wall. Any ideas?

I would likely strip it to bare wood, stain and finish with an oil

It doesn't appear to be a very fine quality wood. It has very old paint on it, so my guess is that it was intended to be painted.

Possibly, though a lot of turn of the century pantry cupboards like that were varnished even when made of deal

Mick_VT wrote:I would likely strip it to bare wood, stain and finish with an oil

That would be my suggestion as well.
If you don't like the result you can always repaint it.

Hi, guys! Long time no see. I think I got busy with life and completely forgot to update this thread! I never even shared any "after" photos!






This last photo is of the former "ninja turtle" room. Can you believe it? We were even able to recover the beautiful wood floor!

Wow - looking backwards over your posts I can see how much work you've done. Paint in subdued shades really changed the look of the rooms with the unconventional paint jobs ! What you've done looks very good.

What did you finally do with that countertop, by the way ? I would have voted for painting it.