Painted wood floor above kitchen ceiling

September 11, 2009

Ok, I've been talked out of the old wood floors in the main part of the house because our beautiful oak and fir on top will have left a lot of nail holes, the floors are too soft, the floors would be different levels, "there's a reason they covered it", etc. but...a new saga. Still no gold in the walls.
Both kitchens have 8' ceilings compared to 9'4" in the rest of the house. The floors are all level so there is "room" between the 2 kitchens - specifically 16". Mike our contractor wanted to see what's in there because we need to order windows and the plans call for full height kitchen. He was hoping a drop ceiling and no pipes. Trying to cut thru the ceiling was a bear - no drop ceiling here. Mike says it looks like another floor. Huh? His saw is having a difficult time. Well it appears to be 2 layers of 3/4" flooring just like the main part of the house (old growth pine?). I think we have a very nice old floor without nail holes. It doesn't look hand planed but maybe from the 1840's. We know the addition was there before 1877 when city sewer was hooked up to the house per the old city connection plans that year. The floor is painted too like the old part of the house. Since it's on the 2nd floor it would not have gotten much use and nothing on top of it so no nail holes.

I asked Mike if he's ripping up the ceiling today. He said no (he's getting the footings in for the mudroom today - a full size cement mixer was in our back yard yesterday). I told him I may want to keep that old floor. He said only a midget could get it up. Well, I'm the ideas person and John is the implementer. John's cringing right now reading this. We got the weekend to think how to attack it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the old floor but it will not be in the dumpster!


All ideas appreciated.

Well, John spent part of Saturday trying to figure out how to get the floor boards out easily. He had to cut a larger hole to get a better look. On Sunday my brother-in-law Jeremy and a good friend Eugene helped John bring down the 2 layers of old pine (plus insulation, old mice droppings and 100 years of dust). Eugene came up with an even better idea on how to get whole pieces simply down. They guys got all the boards out in 4 - 5 hours. I spent the afternoon taking out the old sqaure nails. At some point I may make a sculpture out of them. I'm not sure what to do with the old floor but it's not in the dumpster. Maybe they will go down on our bedroom when we start phase 3.