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.