Floors

The floor in our livingroom/kitchen were a mess. Old wooden floors that had been varnished, painted, sanded, painted, sanded, varnished and worn down beyond repair. On top of that we removed two walls and both the stair case landing and the little room that are now apart of the kitchen used to be covered by plywood and linoleum and vinyl. The thing is, the floors were too old to be sanded again and we did not have the money to put down a whole new floor + I kind of liked the worn down floor boards. So. We decided to keep the floor as it was, clean it and repair it and finally giving it a new layer of varnish to give it a consistent surface.

In the kitchen part of the room, this meant pulling out 1 million rusty nails from the vinyl, removing old spackle and even older varnish + knowing when not to even attempt to remove anything. Then I went over every board, scraping and sanding and cleaning each one and finally, after scrubbing the whole thing on my hands and knees, painting a layer of satin floor varnish. We even kept a section of the floor that was painted mint green and had been hiding under the old kitchen.

The result is a puzzle of different surfaces and types of wood (with a couple of new boards mixed in where the old floor had holes and where the walls were standing). I used to think that wood floors were the most beautiful when sanded and kept as light as possible with lye for example, but I have come to really love the satin varnish surface and the warm color of the wood. It also feels good to have something old and used in this room that has been completely redone. The room would have had such a different feel with the white walls and black beams if the floors were completely new and smooth.