Friday, March 27, 2015

Office and Dining Room Floors

I went back and forth for a while on whether I should pull up the floors in the Dining Room and Office. The early 1900's heart pine floors were very pretty and it would be a lot less work, but if I left them there would be a lip between the Dining Room and the hall. In the end I decided to pull them up and I'm glad I did for a number of reasons, the biggest being that there was not a lot of meat left on them and sanding them would most likely have caused them to split.






These are the floors in the Office, which we have begun calling the Christmas room because of the red and green alternating floor boards.

I sanded a small area and wet it to get an idea of what it would look like, The color is a bit off but it's enough to see how red it is, I'm wondering if they are Cedar.



An interesting discovery I made while working in the office is the original walls. Sometime in the Victorian era they built another wall next to the original to make pocket doors (which are gone of course). I pulled off the trim that covered the opening and found out that the original walls were wide plank wood, each board is at least 10" wide.


Friday, March 20, 2015

Parlor Floors

I pulled up the 50's White Oak flooring in the Parlor and made an interesting discovery. The original floors were hand painted with a faux wood grain to look like Curly Maple.




I'm not sure of the era of this, it could be Victorian or Antebellum. I'm leaning toward Victorian.

I am going to try to save this but it is going to be difficult. I have a lot of nail holes to repair and there is some pretty heavy wear in a few places. I think I can fix the nail holes by filling them with white wood putty then using a stain to recreate the "grain" in that area. I think golden oak will probably be a good match for color, I will have to do a little experimenting to find out.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Hall Floors

After taking down the drop ceiling in the hall I turned my attention to the floors in the hall. The original floors are random width wide plank floors that are over 1 1/4" thick. I'm not completely certain what they are made of (Pine, Cedar, or Cypress maybe) but they glow beautifully when refinished.

These floors were covered over in the early 1900's downstairs with 3 1/4" heart pine, then to make matters worse in the 1950's they pulled up the early 1900's floors in the foyer and parlor and put down 2 1/4" white oak flooring. The end result was flooring that went in different directions in each room.

Because it looked awful and because I'm a purest I decided to pull these up and go back down to the original floors.


As I pulled up the flooring I noticed something that had me quite confused for a while.


You can clearly see the outline of the previous staircase. But this type of staircase that goes up a few steps to a landing then turns is purely Victorian, but the floor beneath is was bare which would suggest that it was original. I then remembered that back when this house was made in the 1850's floors were not finished but bare wood.

It made more sense now, there was another staircase here BEFORE the Victorian staircase. More than likely when it was removed and the Victorian staircase was installed the floors were still unfinished.

I pulled up all the wood in the front hall then pulled up all the wood in the back hall. I had to be very careful to not damage the wood I was pulling up so I can save it, but also be very careful to damage the original floor as little as possible.




Monday, March 16, 2015

Work begins!

The first thing I did after closing was to remove the wall that separated the front hall from the back. This wall was added in the early '50's.





With that done I turned to the drop ceiling that was installed around the same time.




I'm currently looking for a period staircase as this one was built in the early '50's also.

The next thing I tackled was the wall in the parlor. I knew there was a fireplace behind the wall, we will be rebuilding the chimney at some point soon so I went ahead and opened it up.




That's some crazy wallpaper! I have a Greek Revival mantle circa 1852 that will go here.

I had the intention of going back to the original walls but I found that the walls on either side of the fireplace were added in the 50's, originally the fireplace stuck out into the room about 1 1/2'. I would love to go back to that but that would mean cutting into the bathroom so instead I will  cover it back up with 1/4" sheetrock.


Closing

Welcome!

This blog will chronicle the restoration of what my 4 year old daughter calls "The Big White House". The house is a large, two-story, side hall plan with Greek Revival, Italianate, and Victorian features. I am estimating the original build date to be in the 1850's.





We actually found the house last July and spent almost 9 long months trying to get the place. In the end it was all worth it as we just closed on the house today!

Today I begin what I hope is a short renovation of the interior so we can move in. I'm hoping to complete it in a month. I have several goals I want to accomplish; The removal of flooring on the first floor that was added over time over the original 6" wide plank flooring, the removal of dropped ceilings in several rooms, the leveling of floors in several areas, and several other smaller projects.

My goal is to get us in the house in a month but my ultimate goal is to completely restore this house over time. That will include, replacing the windows that were installed in the 1950's with either period antique windows or custom made ones, replacement of all the interior trim with period appropriate trim, removal of the vinyl siding, and repainting of the house.

I will post as I can, it may be a little slow in coming in the beginning as I will be very busy but hopefully I can start posting regularly soon.

Thanks for stopping by!