Floors and More

Ding- dong! Who's there? Floors, wood, hard, awesome. Hi-lo.

We had a big delivery today! All the wood, underlayment, polyurethane, etc for our floors arrived. We've got two big glorious piles of wood just waiting to lay on down. The wood will acclimate to our house for a few days and work will start on Monday (psst...it is Monday now, and spoiler, floors going in are glorious!). It is going to be a little tricky living at the house during the install. The second floor won't be any trouble, but we are still sleeping in the bedroom on the first floor and the only running water is on the first floor as well. 

Just look at all that glorious wood! 

We've tackled more difficult situations but the thought of moving completely into the basement isn't a favorite. We'll hold out until the bedroom is the last room left to install.  The second floor will also be the first sanded and sealed. Once it comes time to finish the first floor, we'll either clear out for several days, or in a dream world, we'd have a working toilet and sink upstairs and just camp out upstairs. 

But my joy can't be tampered by potentially tricky living situations (aka no toilet). We've lived through it all at this point anyhow. So, I am nearly bursting at the thought of our finished living room floors, I even giggled out loud when I saw the feature strip wood stacked into the space next to the oak. What is a feature strip? Oh man, only my favorite part about original old flooring. Here, for example:

image from Billy's Floors

The photo above is a bit wider than our feature strip, but the angles around our bayed window and the coloring is just about identical to what our finished floor will look like. We chose to go with a 3/4" Peruvian walnut for the single feature strip. Our white oak will be left natural and finished in a clear water based poly. I love the high contrast and think it will look perfect with the dark stain I have on our windows. 

This beauty below was featured on 6sqft.com and has me more than a little envious. Look at all those beautiful details, the carved wood screen between the two parlors definitely does it for me. And yet, to me, the simple inlay around the edge of the floors seems just as thoughtful as all the other wood work.  

While we can't afford crazy detailed mill work and paneling, nor would it be entirely fitting of the home and its original middle class neighborhood construction, we can place a few details back into the property to bring it back to life. The living room is our modern day parlor, our public space, even though it has moved to the rear of the house and combined with the dining room. These public rooms are where the decorative elements make the most sense, and from a budgetary standpoint, will be worth the most. We have a few other small details that we'll add back in, but more on that later.