The front half of our house was built in the 1940’s with beautiful oak floors (over solid oak planked sub-floors as well!) When we bought the house, though, they were covered in carpet…and definitely not the nicest carpet around.
I was pretty pregnant at the time and not into the idea of my newborn baby crawling over dirty, musty carpet, so I insisted we rip it out before we even moved it. So, after closing on the house, I drove to the airport to pick up my mom (who was flying in to help with the move) and my husband drove to the house to rip out the carpet. I was praying all the way to and from the airport that there wasn’t a big plywood patch in the middle or a bunch of unsightly stains.
Fortunately, the wood was in great shape. In a couple of rooms, the floors were almost raw, though. The finish had worn off entirely. A couple of rooms looked like they had been refinished, but were still in pretty rough shape. The wood floor in the office (formerly the kitchen before the addition was put on) was covered up by a few layers of linoleum with some plywood patches. Nice.
So, when I was five months pregnant with the second boy, I decided to refinish the existing wood floors and install matching wood floors in the office (that linoleum wasn’t going anywhere.) I wasn’t into having my newborn crawling around on raw wood floors and patched linoleum. The project took a couple of weeks and resulted in me shuffling around in a Huggies box (you can read about that in my book) and, eventually, beautiful walnut-stained oak floors.
I refinished the floors about 4 years ago and they looked great for about two years. Then, I started to go crazy with the furniture buying and selling thing and my floors have suffered for it.
The finish has been chipped, scratched and gouged and the stain has come right off with it. It’s looking pretty bad, especially in the foyer and dining room. (Since the office was new wood, it has held up much better.)
I’ve taken to using Photoshop to touch up my floors in pictures for my blog and freelance gigs. Now that I have a bit more refinishing experience under my belt, I’m ready to tackle the living and dining room floors again. Here’s what I’m thinking…
Natural oak and stained oak checkerboard pattern. It’s classic, but makes a statement.
