How we saved our hardwood floors

Saving the original wood floors has been the biggest challenge of the whole Greyshade Estate project to date, but it was also one that had to be done now or probably never. The logistics of it all once we fully moved in would have been nearly insurmountable. We would have had to put all our stuff in storage and tent camp in the backyard for a month or two. We’re tough people but I’m really glad we didn’t have to be that tough. As described previously the first step was to demolish the old tile, cementboard backing, mildewed carpet and cheap MDF baseboards. Then we removed the hundreds of screws, nails and staples that had been used secure the tile backing and carpeting. This was a big risk because the only thing we knew about the floors was what they were like in the master bedroom. For all we knew the rest of the flooring might have been ripped out and replaced with plywood. As it turned out we already saw the worst of it under the bathroom addition but all those patches will be inside closets eventually. The only other patches were a small one in a bedroom (shown post sanding next to the broom) and a large one were the original floor furnace used to be in the living room. This patch sagged whenever I stepped on it. You see it in the picture with the large dark area of the floor. That dark area turned out to be asphalt stain, one of the most hard to remove finishes ever put on floors. Next came the longest phase of the process, research. I knew almost nothing about floor refinishing four months ago. One of the first really good pieces of information I found was the video below.

The first thing I figured out after this video was that I certainly had tongue and grove hardwood flooring. The second thing I figured out was that no tool rental place in town has ever heard of a Clark EZ-Sander. In fact, only one store had orbital floor sanders. Several people warned me that drum sanders will leave lots of dips and can leave gouges in unpracticed hands. The majority of people I spoke with who had refinished their own floors regretted it, but on our budget professional floor finishing was out of the question. I had a lot to think about. The freshly uncovered floor had caked on dirt, concrete dust, and patches of glue. Repeated sweepings slowly cleaned it. I studied it. I walked on it in stocking feet. I got to know it. I noticed the glue patches where starting to wear off just from walking on them and some areas were starting to polish up a bit. I thought about what I really wanted out of a floor and remembered what I had written earlier in this blog about letting old things look old. Professionals use drum sanders so the can quickly strip the floor deeply enough erase all the "flaws" and make it dead flat and new looking. They do it to erase the floor's history and make it look like it was installed yesterday. I didn't want that at all. The floor needed some repair, it needed enough sanding to take off the old finish and it needed some kind of new finish but on the whole it’s age and many flaws were what made it beautiful. A professional floor finisher might not see it that way, but steampunk is partly about rediscovering that special personal relationship to making things that only amateurs and true crafters have. After a few experiments I found that the best way to remove the glue was scraping. It took about three days on my hands and knees but it got done. Next I arranged for some time off work and rented an orbital sander on a weekly rate. The first area I took on was the asphalt stained area. It took two days to sand that fifteen square foot section. The rest of the floor took only three days combined. After sanding the small bedroom patch turned out to have some nice grain and was quite solid so I left it alone. The sagging living room patch was another matter. I solicited a few bids but the lowest anyone would repair it for was over five hundred. My plumbers, Ishmael and Ruben, came to my aid. While under the house replacing the rusted out drain line, they examined the patch from the underside and said that the floor joists were solid and that the subfloor should be an easy repair. I ripped out the patch while they worked and discovered that under the thin plywood was a soggy piece of disintegrating particleboard. No wonder the thing gave under my weight. Once that was gone Ishmael showed me that all I needed to do was screw in some short sections of two by floor to the joists to provide a lip, and then drop in a small piece of 3/4 inch plywood and screw that to the two by floors. In an hour I had a rock solid sub floor repair. Next I needed tongue and groove flooring. I plan to use salvaged hardwood flooring for a countertop in the kitchen so I made the trek to Vintage Timberworks in Temecula and bought enough for both projects. Cutting, fitting and nailing in place these little pieces of oak was easy but there turned out to be one more hurdle to overcome. Our poor floor has been drum sanded so many times that the new flooring stuck up nearly a quarter inch above it. I spent the next day with my grandfather’s wood plane and the day after that I rented the orbital sander again. Finally the floor was ready to be refinished. I didn’t want a glossy polyurethane finish on my beautifully aged floor. I wanted something that would give the floor a glow but not shine. Linseed oil came to mind. I asked Lisa from Olive Branch for something oil based and low VOC. She recommended European product that has only recently become available in the America called Monocoat. When properly applied Monocoat stains and seals in one application. It also doesn’t bond with itself so there is no build up should repairs be necessary. The company provides detailed application instructions online. Basically you clean the floor thoughly with their cleaner, squirt the stuff on a small section at a time and spread it out with a floor buffer (another rental), then clean off any excess with the floor buffer. The only real trick is timing. It takes ten minutes for Monocoat to bond with the floor, but the excess must be removed within half an hour or it gets gummy. That's why you have to take it one section at a time. The product is expensive at about a hundred dollars a litter but it only took a litter and a half to do the entire floor. I finished the floor at two in the morning on March 17th. Three days later we moved in. I am deeply satisfied with the results. The pictures don't do this floor justice. The Monocoat made the grain of the wood really pop and gave it the linseed oil glow I was after. The screw holes, stains and little warps in the wood give it such a feeling of age and permanence. My floor is like nothing that could ever come from a factory. It is something that was clearly grown from the earth and made by hand. With equipment rental and materials the total cost was about eight hundred dollars spread over a two months. The results will probably last the rest of lives.