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Part Two English Tudor Entryway

Here is Part Two of our entry floor remodel: Restoring a Wood Floor
My husband and I loved finding the red oak wood floor under all the layers of tile. It was a real happy relief. Old homes are full of unexpected finds along the way. It appears when the closet doors were removed by the prior owners they had to remove part of the oak wood floor. Instead of fixing it with new red oak wood they put down pine boards. Then they covered the pine boards with linoleum tile. The next homeowners did not like the linoleum and covered it over with porcelain tiles. Sometimes I wonder what the homeowners were really thinking! I would say
r-e-a-l-l-y to them! In my New Jersey sarcastic accent!
I wish I could have whispered in their ears and said something like...What are you nuts! Why would you do something so dumb? lol
Of course we could not leave it looking like this. We have been fixing all the bizarre fix up's in our home and this is just another one. Friends always comment that "no one will ever know all the work you put into fixing your home."
I tell them that's great it should not look patched! It does seem to take US forever to get things finished. It's just my husband and me restoring our home. Sometimes I wish we had more time to work on projects or had a crew. But having a crew of workers would cost us a fortune in This Old House :) Here you can see the pine boards. It was just not the look we were hoping for. My husband sanded the wood floor and before we stained it we had to patch the flooring. My husband pulled up all the pine boards and a section of the
red oak flooring that had a hole in it I guess from the original doors. He then had to chisel the original tongue and groove floor so we could put down the new red oak planks.
*Make sure your chisel is sharp. Here is a close up of removing the tongue and grove. The new red oak floorboard now fits perfectly against the original plank boards. It took some time getting the rest of the oak floorboards to fit. My husband tapped the new boards in place with a rubber mallet. Do you see the hole where the original doors must have been? Here we were able to use part of the original red oak floorboard. When I flipped over the original floorboard and it had the name HARRIS on it. Cool Huh!!! Harris is still in business after all these years.
I just looked them up. It felt good to salvaged one of the original floorboards. It was just like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together. We needed to fit one last floorboard but the gap was two small and it was not even. I said to my husband we need to make spacers. Every day we would add bigger spacers and the gap finally got wide enough for the last piece of floorboard to go in. What a relief that was. The wood floorboards fit like a glove! It turned out fantastic!
Like it once looked 100 years ago. Now the fun part trying to match 100 year old red oak floor stain to the rest of our wood floors.
Stay Tuned for Part Three. Labels: 100 Year Old Home, English Tudor, Entryway, Red Oak, Remodel, Restoring a Wood Floor, Tongue and Groove Floor, Wood Floor 

January 24, 2014 at 10:17 AM 
Looks great, Dee!

January 24, 2014 at 10:18 AM Rob Hunt said...

Looks good a labor of love nice job.

January 24, 2014 at 10:35 AM Betsy@ coastal-colors said...

This looks great, Dee! What a blessing to be able to match this so well. You two amaze me with the projects you tackle! How thrilling to know it looks like it did 100 years ago!

January 24, 2014 at 3:31 PM 
Looking good! Doesn't it feel great to restore & fix all the little oddities in an old house?

January 24, 2014 at 5:46 PM 
Dearest Dee,
Oh my, you DID it as a tenacious team. Wow, this will be perfection in the end and than all the hard work will be forgotten. We do it like you both do; all ourselves, well mostly all ourselves and for the very same budget reason. That takes longer and for months we often cannot entertain friends at home because of the mess. But they know and understand. We're now almost back to normal again. Being neat and tidy as I love to be.
Hugs and happy weekend to both of you.

PS Guess that via Harris you figured out all about the original stain!

January 24, 2014 at 5:53 PM Meredith @ The Laundry Can Wait said...

Such hard work you've invested in this project, and it looks like it's well worth it! XOXO
 
What a daunting task. I bet it's going to look great when you are all finished. I love old homes when they are restored. It's a labor of love.

January 24, 2014 at 10:34 PM 
Your floor sure did turn out fantastic!! When it's finished and beautiful and you love it, you'll be glad you worked hard to do it right.

January 24, 2014 at 11:09 PM 
Great job Dee! I know what you mean about no one knowing how much work is involved! If you watch any of the DIY shows you will see that bringing in a "crew" is a nightmare in itself! No one really cares any more how work is done, (unless you pay a fortune for it). Sounds like your DH is as picky about doing things right as mine is, which means for a lot of work but beautiful results! This is a beautiful job and I can see all the work that went into doing it right. That "crew" would have shaved the board down and left you with a crooked odd size to look at forever, lol. Can't wait to see it stained! ~Diane

January 25, 2014 at 10:33 AM Debbiedoos said...

WOW Looking good Dee!

January 25, 2014 at 1:17 PM 
Lots of hard work! Looking good though.


January 26, 2014 at 12:30 AM 
Wow! Bless you, Dee, for returning the floor to its former glory! Who on earth would cover up a treasure like this? I love oak and it does make the most wonderful floor. What an amazing job you've both done restoring it. Thank you for popping over to my blog! :)

January 26, 2014 at 3:13 AM 
Beautifully done! There are times when I wish we had a crew too, but it is very rewarding to do these projects ourselves the right way. You two are a great team!


January 26, 2014 at 1:07 PM 
You are putting so much labor and love into the floor and it is looking great. You will be so happy with it when you are finished.

January 26, 2014 at 5:48 PM Amy at Ms. Toody Goo Shoes said...

What a job, but, boy, it looks great! Looking forward to part 3!

January 26, 2014 at 7:12 PM