Wood Floor Resurrection!

Like most late 1800's Vermont homes, ours has hardwood floors throughout... albeit underneath many other unwanted layers of flooring like linoleum and carpet.  Most of the floors were covered in linoleum, which in our case was glued down with a now petrified layer of tar paper. The linoleum itself came up fairly easy, but the tar paper itself wasn't going anywhere without a fight. This substrate cannot be sanded off because it would instantly gum up your abrasives, which would not only cost a small fortune in belts and discs but would also just make a messy job even messier. After getting nowhere fast with chemical solvents, I tried a wallpaper steamer (Wagner model 705, $50, available at the big box stores and Amazon) and it was instantly clear that this was the best way forward. The steamer comes with an end attachment that allowed me to set it on the floor for a minute or two while the steam reanimated the stubborn adhesive into a loose slurry that was easily scraped up with a putty knife and wiped clean with a million paper towels. You do have to be methodical and go at this one square foot at a time but the payoff is instantly felt.

The tar paper actually seemed to serve to preserve the wood quite well, so after it was removed, this section of floor only needed a relatively light sanding and refinishing! 

Thankfully, the entire home wasn't covered in linoleum so those areas certainly went quicker as I could just go straight to the drum sander ....

 ...which made quick work of transforming these 100+ year old wood floors from this ...

to this! 

These two rooms used to be a separate living and dining space which we decided to open up. The original floors in each room are different species (douglas fir in the far room, and pine closest)... there was a cavity left by the wall we removed where there was no original wood floor so I opted to lay in a wide plank of Brazilian walnut which made for a beautiful and natural transition between the two spaces.  There is no stain on either floor, just a waterbased satin poly... dries fast, very low odor / V.O.C. and is 'oil modified' which helps enhance the aged tones in the floor.