Old Hardwood Flooring

One of the hardest products to find is thin strip hardwood flooring. Only 10 years ago it was readily available but the product has been shoved aside in favor of wider planking. Why? Well, for one the style changed and for another the thin strips take more labor to put down.

Thin strip hardwood is found in older homes and commercial properties and schools. Not so long ago the demolition of these places required a wrecking ball and a line of dump trucks. All the rubble was unceremoniously trucked to a landfill. Today, because of landfill dumping laws and the demand for old materials, buildings are “de-constructed” meaning that crews strip the building of usable parts before it is taken down. This includes old hardwood floors.

Old flooring material can be found in farm houses, residential properties, barns and bowling alleys. Barn board is especially sought after. The planks are planed, slotted and refinished for their new job as a high-end floor. The old boards have darkened into a mellow, honey color and need only a glaze to bring out their rich history.

Another place where wood is being reclaimed is on the bottom of lakes and rivers. Years ago when logging operations depended on water to transport logs many of these sank and sat until foragers brought them to the surface. These finally make their journey to a sawmill but are made into flooring planks.

The Anatomy of an Old Floor

If you’ve ever owned an old home, especially a farmhouse, you’ll see that the flooring construction methods were a lot different than they are today. For one thing there was no oriented strand board or plywood so the sheathing was planking of different widths.

Here is the strata of an old farmhouse circa 1875

1. Sills: These were 12″ X 16″ timbers with 12″ being the horizontal surface. These sills usually sat on a stacked rock which, in many case, were reinforced years later with cinder blocks or a poured cement wall.
2. Floor Joists: These were 5″  X 8″ beams and they were slotted into a 12″ X 16″ sill. The sills on each side were carved out with a 5″ X 8″ X 6″so that the ends of each joist sat 6″ in the 2 sills These were not nailed.
3. Floor Boards: In many cases the floorboards were pine. Sometimes the boards were 16″ wide showing the size of the tress in those days. Square horseshoe nails were the fasteners of the time and these left rusty spots which are now favored by floor re-finishers for their rustic appearance. This floor would be rubbed with tung oil as a preservative and the preferred method of cleaning the floor was usually moist sawdust.
4. Oil Cloth: This was a first generation linoleum product which was stamped with decorations – usually flowers. The base product was canvas which was oiled, stamped with the decoration, varnished and then rolled.
5. Linoleum: This would be the next layer. usually the homeowner put the linoleum right over the old oil cloth floor instead of taking it out. Linoleum was linseed oil film on a canvas backing. It was more durable than oil cloth.
6. Linoleum: A second linoleum floor would usually be put over the first, again, instead of taking the old one out.
7. Carpet: In the 1970’s wall-to-wall carpet became popular and many homes have the original – if not heavily-used – carpet.

So if you ever want to redo an old floor you may find yourself needing an archaeologist more than a flooring expert.