finding the floor

You know those TV shows where a sweet couple wants to redo their home, with a seemingly endless budget for their celebrity designer to work with? They always seem to make miraculous finds in the home. My favorite one is the wood floors. The number of times that happens on reality TV would lead you to believe that under every bit of carpet, there’s an immaculate wood floor just waiting to be uncovered.

After doing some degree of renovation on the last 3 houses we’ve owned, I can tell you that there is not always a beautiful floor hidden underneath like a gem waiting to be mined. For reasons I can only speculate, the floors here, whatever lay underneath, had been covered with 3/4” plywood sheets. Suffice it to say, I was nervous about what we would find underneath. Of course, my dream was to find the original wood flooring, but why would anyone cover that up?

In order to finish cleaning the lath off the walls in the new bathroom, the plywood had to come up. So, one way or the other, we were going to find out what was under the plywood.

Excitement and disbelief of the best kind! Original beech floors!

Maybe the TV shows are right sometimes. I mean it’s bound to happen at least once in a while, right? As is coming to be expected with this house, there were a couple more layers under the plywood. There was some linoleum and tar paper, but then the holy grail of floors! Original, beautiful hardwood! Keep the good surprises coming!