One of the great joys of renovation is the absolute knowledge that you never know what you are going to get (insert your Forest Gump quote here), if you aren’t amenable to change, do not apply. It is renovation after all – change is the point. Still, regardless of your personal experience, you can never fully “see” what is behind that wall, or under that floor… We have already done a post on our happy discovery of the original wood floors in this old farmhouse, which are actually part maple and part tulip poplar, and are responsible for much of the style and feel of the house. It is impossible to recreate the patina which old floors have, the style they add to a room is the best possible base to build good design from – it makes it that much easier. Funny that we are currently obsessing over what we can do on our upcoming project–tentatively called This Old Burnt Coach House - floors on a budget are hard to do, another red oak floor, while functional and better than some, won’t really cut it. In any case, back to this post and this floor, which is the kitchen floor.

What lurks beneath?
We had hoped that the kitchen floor would be salvageable as well, did that fantastic orangish linolneum hide another hardwood sub-floor as well? In fact, one feature of homes of this era is that whatever local wood was available was milled and installed directly over the floor joists, which in modern building would have a sub-floor of plywood or particle board with the hardwood flooring installed over the top, we could actually see lines on the floors before they were sanded from where the rugs had been, all those years ago.
In the kitchen, linoleum removed, we discovered a slight problem with the hardwood floors, which appeared to be oak, rather than tulip poplar, corresponding to the various stages during which This Old Farmhouse had been built. We believe that the kitchen was actually a one room cabin in its first iteration, the living room and “Michigan Basement” added later and the two story addition added last, when the family had grown. This admittedly amateur archeology was clear as the house was under renovation, we even found old newspapers from different periods (1930’s, 1950’s) to substantiate our theories and the kitchen floor was actually one more clue (even I was wondering where this is going). This is another of the great joys of renovation, actually participating in another period of the homes improvement, adding to its legacy (now did we actually put any newspapers in the walls, hmmm).
What we found under the floor was beautiful strip oak flooring, however, in keeping with the theme of this post, we found what could only be described as a “lake” in the middle of the floor, where the flooring had sagged over time. The plywood that was over the old oak floor was covering up to a 4″ dip in some places! The source of the problem needed to be addressed and because this first part of the house was over a tiny, nasty crawlspace, it was necessary to pull up the flooring to see what had created the problem–game over for the oak floor. Could the flooring be salvaged and reinstalled? Possibly, but taking out the strip oak without damage is a tall order and some boards inevitably splinter beyond use, particularly in the area which had sagged over time there was nothing to be done. As a result what we were able to salvage is in our barn, waiting for a second use and we were faced with a dreaded “change order” something those of you who have done projects with contractors are no doubt familiar. We needed a new floor and sub floor, not to mention new floor joists (the horizontal structure which holds up the floor), as the original floor” joists” were actually trees, and pine trees at that, which are quite soft and given to sagging, particularly when they had had a bad case of the “bugs” at some point in their past. Un-milled trees also maintain their original form and thus aren’t quite straight, which created part of the sagging floor problem. Have a look at what we found under the floor, perhaps you can relate to your own projects?
Next up: How to create a beautiful floor on a decent budget (with a great patina)!
Next, next up: What else we found under the floor, or why you don’t want to pull up floors in the first place.

The original strip oak floor underneath plywood and "sleepers" which hid the large depression in the original floor.

A growing problem, exposed. South wall, beautiful strip oak floors, needed to be pulled.

The problem under the floor, exposed. The original logs indicate that this part of the farmhouse is at least 100 years old, we were told.

Adding the new floor joists, creating a strong and level base for the new floor.

View of the sink/plumbing wall.

View of the passage which led to our fridge in the back hall during this extended period of fixing the kitchen floor, lending a completely new meaning to going to the fridge. We lovingly referred to this as 'walking the plank'.