Tuesday, October 09, 2007

A NICE surprise for once

I got a wild hair last weekend and decided to pull up the carpet in our upstairs hallway. This was a project that I approached with a bit of trepidation after my last carpet-pulling-up issues. There’s a post in here somewhere about it; it’s too painful to relive. Anyway, I digress. Back to the carpet project at hand. I pulled it and noted that the pad was just gross. Super fun! It shredded as I attempted to pull it up, so I ended up taking a squeegee and just “raking” it all up. Blech. But….but…..but…..as I revealed the floor underneath I was richly rewarded by Father Time and the House Renovation Gods. It was gorgeous, beautifully patinated wide-plank heart pine, in awesome condition, the same wood and condition that seems to be in most areas of the house. Behold the beauty—and this is even before mopping! Once I give it a nice nourishing snack, that floor is going to be a show-stopper.


























That leaves just three rooms to pull: the living room, dining room, and upstairs office. Maybe I’ll start one of them next weekend.

I should mention that it took me a full 1.5 days for this project. The following picture may give you some indication why. I had a lot of “help.” A lot.

4 comments:

Sandy said...

I get that kind of "help" at home in just about everything I do! LOL (and I'm not renovating)

Katie Lady said...

That's fantastic! The Renovation Gods smiled on you!

Maria Stahl said...

Can you explain to me what "heart pine" is, exactly? Does it describe the grain?

We have pine plank floors in most of our house, but considering the vintage of the house, it's probably not expensive wood.

G said...

Heart pine refers to the fact that it's pine heartwood, milled from the very center of the pine lumber. The grain is SUPER tight, which makes the floors nice and tough. In wood grain, the darker areas are stronger. The lighter colored sapwood is not as strong, but when you have heartwood there is hardly any sapwood.