Kitchen Floor Decision

[House_BuhBooLis]

We have the original wood floors all throughout the old part of the house. In the kitchen new, cheap oak floors were installed over layers. When we got down to the original wood, they were chopped up from all the different configurations of the kitchen. There was a trap door, holes for pipes, reinforced places for stoves... In the end, we put down a sub floor and Marmoleum.

OMG, I hope I find a trap door!!!

[Lily left the valley]

Trap door, secret passage ways and lunchboxes full of cash!

So many tantalizing possibilities.

[Powermuffin]

It was the only way to access the basement at the time. But now it is right in front of the sink so we reinforced it and laid the subfloor over it. In the original, unfitted kitchen, the sink was on another wall.

The best thing about uncovering the layers was the pieces of pale green and pale yellow lino laid in a checkerboard design. It was so pretty, but only a few pieces were still there. I would love to have that as the kitchen floor. Couldn't find anything close to those colors today though.

[phil]

under the carpet in my living room that I am presently destroying by doing drywall there is a layer of cork flooring with Jute backing. under that is paper and then the wood floor.

I havent' seen the cork properly yet except the edges. it looks usable but pretty tattered near the edges. someone hand painted a floral pattern all around the outside foot or so maybe all of it ? its a dilemma because I know I'll want to see the wood floor and I dont know what to do with the cork if I have to take it out. It made it this far. who knows how long they used the original floor for but maybe they saved it for me with the lino. it does seem to have a finish on some of the spots I saw near the edges.

[Lily left the valley]

under the carpet in my living room that I am presently destroying by doing drywall there is a layer of cork flooring with Jute backing. under that is paper and then the wood floor.

I havent' seen the cork properly yet except the edges. it looks usable but pretty tattered near the edges. someone hand painted a floral pattern all around the outside foot or so maybe all of it ? its a dilemma because I know I'll want to see the wood floor and I dont know what to do with the cork if I have to take it out. It made it this far. who knows how long they used the original floor for but maybe they saved it for me with the lino. it does seem to have a finish on some of the spots I saw near the edges.

I'm not sure what you have planned for the walls, but if you're doing the vertical partitioning between chair rail and base mould, maybe some of that decorated cork could be salvaged and mounted in some of the panels? If they can use burlap and lincrusta, why not cork? Another idea is if you are making any sort of cabinetry, you could put smaller pieces on the inset part of the door fronts that won't have leaded glass. I've even seen some cabinets where they went so far as to decorate the backs of the cabinetry doors--a nice hidden touch of craft there.

[eclecticcottage]

We have most of the original floors in (original part of) the Cottage, with the exception of the bathroom-and the hallway, which is a replacement that is basically the same floor (it's about 1/8-1/4" of an inch wider-it's been a couple years so I can't recall which it is) because the floor there was rotted out due to a leak from the bathtub which is on the other side of the wall. All of the floors there were covered and it was a good bit of work to clean them up. Here, the worst spot wasn't by the sink (which was in pretty good shape) it was where the fridge sits-we had to patch in some of the hall replacement floor there. No subfloor, just sleepers (the original part of the cottage is on a slab) and the pine.

It's the same floor as we had at the Old House-basic "paint grade" pine. In the Old House, it was only covered in the dining room and kitchen (and bathroom)-and the dining room just had horrible carpet over linoleum that wasn't glued down, it was just laid on top of old newspaper. It also didn't have a subfloor-just the regular pine right on the floor joists.

[House_BuhBooLis]

Wow, you guys are pretty great at predicting all the problems we'll have!

We got all the biggest stuff up this weekend, and the worst spot is under the fridge...there is some rotting (as eclecticcottage predicted! see photo)...but its not all the way through and still pretty solid....and will continue to be under the fridge. Perhaps we will replace a few boards...would only be 2-4 boards. The entire area was a little "mildew-y", but just the surface.

We also found one small hole in the middle of the floor. See photo.

The ceramic tile under the middle section did end after the arch...which was nice, but I am very sore today (and my husband's sorer), the plywood was nailed and glued down...so it didn't want to come up.

Lots of "edging" left to get up, and we'll see how sanding goes...there was one other spot where there was a "chunk" out of the wood...so still kind of leaning towards patching and painting...to be continued....


See hole, mid-right:



See under fridge rot:

[phil]

I'm not sure what you have planned for the walls, but if you're doing the vertical partitioning between chair rail and base mould, maybe some of that decorated cork could be salvaged and mounted in some of the panels?

Thank You Lily that was a neat suggestion. If it has worn sections I could take some of the better stuff. It might look nice and it would be a way of using the stuff. perhaps I could repeat it in some kitchen details as well.

since I was perusing some pics of arts and crafts houses and saw they had substituted a chair rail with a little shelf. well I collect radios so I have many to display ( like hundreds) I thought maybe instead of a picture rail what I could do is a shelf about 9" wide around the circumference of the living room at the height of the picture rail , about a foot from the ceiling. I'm also toying over the idea of replicating the brackets from the craftsman style roof but making them proportionate and smaller to use as the shelf brackets. I could probably display 40 or so table radios around the room way up high.

anyway beck to floors.. I can ponder that more...
Phil

[Lily left the valley]

I'm not sure what you have planned for the walls, but if you're doing the vertical partitioning between chair rail and base mould, maybe some of that decorated cork could be salvaged and mounted in some of the panels?

Thank You Lily that was a neat suggestion. If it has worn sections I could take some of the better stuff. It might look nice and it would be a way of using the stuff. perhaps I could repeat it in some kitchen details as well.

since I was perusing some pics of arts and crafts houses and saw they had substituted a chair rail with a little shelf. well I collect radios so I have many to display ( like hundreds) I thought maybe instead of a picture rail what I could do is a shelf about 9" wide around the circumference of the living room at the height of the picture rail , about a foot from the ceiling. I'm also toying over the idea of replicating the brackets from the craftsman style roof but making them proportionate and smaller to use as the shelf brackets. I could probably display 40 or so table radios around the room way up high.

anyway beck to floors.. I can ponder that more...
Phil

Ah. If you do that, the brackets will be good for both reasons you stated. I'm actually thinking having gone to drywall is more in your favor this way, less concern about what's behind where and the constant need to knock and check for studs when you place your supports. That really would be one heck of a visual, radios all 'round.

Hopefully when you get to the cork layer, it won't get too destroyed in the removal.

I used to wonder how so many of those found cork floors survived high heels, then I remembered that the high heel stilleto most think of today wasn't as common for every day or even house parties, near as pointy (narrow at the heel tip that touches the floor), nor high for most Hostesses and their guests, and thus more weight point centered as they tend to be now. The wider width heel tips would have been much less punishing on those floors before they got buried in "updates".

The crazy things my brain thinks about when I consider wonderful old floors.

[phil]

I'll just have to walk very gingerly after I restore my floors .. lol